Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our rock and redeemer.
I wonder if any of you have owned a house and rented it out to bad tenants? We’ve all heard shocking stories, no doubt, of how poorly some tenants treat the property they are living in. Here’s an interesting story that relates to the parable we have just heard.
There was a family living in a beautiful home in West Palm Beach, Florida, who were asked by a film crew if it was okay to use the front lawn as a film set for a TV show. This would involve cars crashing violently in front of the house. While the front lawn was being destroyed, the owner of the house was notified, possibly by a friendly neighbour. The owner contacted the tenants, demanding to know what was going on! The family living in the beautiful house, were not the owner, they were the tenants, they had no right to give permission to the film crew, but they acted as if they did. They probably thought it would be great fun! Terrible things can happen when tenants treat a property they are living in with no respect. And if they failed to pay rent due to the owner, they would be challenged and possibly taken to court. But we know how difficult it can be to evict people.
Today’s parable reminds us of our responsibility to respect our landlord (God) and to produce and offer him the fruit that is his due. If we reject him, we will ultimately be judged and evicted from his Kingdom. But if we put our trust in him, then Jesus, God’s son, who died for us, will be our rock and cornerstone.
We are going to be looking at a few of Jesus’ parables along with other teachings in the latter part of the gospel of Matthew over the coming weeks. So, what is a parable you might ask and why did Jesus use them?
A parable is a simple story generally used to teach a spiritual lesson, a truth or challenge behaviour. Jesus used parables to teach about himself and his mission. Many of his parables relate to his teaching on the ‘Kingdom of God’. And others, like the one we heard today are ‘warning’ parables, to criticize Israels religious leaders. His parables provoke our imagination, he is a great storyteller. The message is sometimes hidden in a parable but is clear for those who have ears to hear.
In today’s parable of the tenants, even the religious leaders, got the drift of what Jesus was saying about them! And they didn’t like it!
The parable of the wicked tenants is one of only 3 parables that is told in each of the synoptic gospels, so it was obviously seen as an important message for Matthew, Mark and Luke. So, we’d better take note!
Firstly, we need to look at it in context.
If you have your bibles open at chapter 21 you will see that it begins with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, where the crowds are shouting Hosanna to the Son of David and hailing him as a prophet from Nazareth. Jesus then goes into the temple and overturns the tables when he sees his that his Father’s house has been turned into a den of robbers.
The religious leaders are very concerned about both of those events and so the next time Jesus enters the temple they confront him with a question about whose authority he has to do those things, who gave him that authority?
Jesus is very clever and as he is likes to do, he responds to their question with a question of his own. He asks them where they thought John the Baptist’s authority came from – from heaven or man? They don’t answer as they are afraid, if they say from heaven, Jesus will ask why then they didn’t believe him, if they say from man, they were afraid of the people who thought he was prophet. So, they say they ‘don’t know’. So, Jesus says he won’t tell them where his authority comes from then.
Instead, he tells them a couple of parables…
The first one is the tale of the two sons. The father asks his son to go and work in his vineyard. The first one says he won’t go, but later he changes his mind and does go and work. The second son says he will go, but he did not go and work. Which one obeyed his father? The first son who changed his mind, (which is the term for repentance), and he follows his change of mind with action – he goes to work for his father. Jesus is pointedly suggesting the second son represents the religious leaders who say one thing but do another. They do not listen to and obey their father God.
If that wasn’t clear enough, Jesus goes on to tell another parable, the one we have heard this morning, the story of the wicked tenants in the vineyard.
The beginning of this parable would have reminded his hearers of the passage from Isaiah 5: 1-7 which we also heard this morning. God is the one who has planted the vineyard and done everything he could to ensure it would yield a good crop. He put a wall around it to protect it from wild animals and enemies, he dug a winepress and built a watchtower. In the Isaiah passage it is the vineyard that has failed to produce good fruit, they only yielded bad grapes, so the vineyard had to be punished. The vineyard refers to Israel, God’s chosen people. In this parable however, Jesus points to the failure of the tenants.
The vineyard is still Israel, God’s people who he continues to care for, it is the tenants who are not listening and obeying God. The tenants of course are the religious leaders, the chief priests and the elders. God had entrusted them with a privileged position to nurture and care for his people, encouraging them to produce good fruit. But what do they do? They are disloyal, they make money in the temple, they oppress the poor and marginalized, they reject God’ prophets and deny God’s rightful claim on them.
The prophets are represented by the servants that had been sent to collect the rent, or the owners share of the fruit. The landowner had created and provided for the vineyard, but then left tenants to care for it. This was a common thing for a landowner to perhaps go away and lease his vineyard out, but then expect about half of the fruit produced as payment.
But what happened when the servants went to collect the fruit? This time it wasn’t an issue of bad fruit, but rather the tenants will not hand over the fruit, they want to keep it all to themselves. They are greedy and selfish. They beat, stone and kill the servants. This is what had happened to the prophet’s God had sent over many, many years. In the parable the owner sends two lots of servants, possibly representing the early and latter prophets. But the same thing happens to them all. They are beaten, stoned and killed.
So, what does the owner of the vineyard decide to do? He sends his son; in Mark and Luke the text reads his ‘beloved’ son. It is obvious that the son is none other than Jesus himself. This parable holds a prophetic word of exactly what will happen to Jesus as he is rejected by the religious leaders.
In the parable, the owner believes that the tenants will respect the authority of his son.
The tenants have other ideas. They throw the son out of the vineyard and kill him. Perhaps they think that since the son is coming, his father might be dead and if they kill the heir, then the whole vineyard could be theirs! Possession being nine tenths of the law.
But the owner of the vineyard is not dead and as Jesus finishes his parable, he asks his listeners (the chief priests and the elders) what they think the owner will do to those tenants?
The religious leaders must know that Jesus is talking about them by this stage, but they have been drawn into the story and they blurt out the obvious answer, and thus condemn themselves. They rightly say, ‘He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.’ (v 41)
At the beginning of the parable Jesus referred to Isaiah 5, now he refers to scripture from psalm 118. A psalm often sung at festivals, a messianic psalm.
The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. (v 42)
This psalm points to resurrection. The stone in psalm 118, is the same as the son in Jesus’ parable. The rejection of the ‘son’ and the ‘stone’ are parallel. And interestingly they are similar words in Hebrew. The Hebrew word for stone is ‘eben’, and for son is ‘ben’.
Through the parable, Jesus is clearly answering the religious leaders’ questions about where his authority comes from! He is God’s son, and he is the one spoken of in the scriptures. The one who after being rejected and killed will be raised to life and become the cornerstone, the mighty rock on which the church with new leaders will be built.
Jesus now speaks clearly to the chief priests and elders; ‘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. Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.’ (v 43-44)
Even though the leaders understand exactly that this parable is talking about them, they do not take heed of the warning. Rather than be like the first son in the first parable, who repented and followed the father’s instructions, they continue to play out the prophecy they have just heard. They look for a way to arrest Jesus. We know the end to this story, don’t we? These parables are being told in Jesus final week before he is thrown out of Jerusalem and killed.
You might read this parable and think that it doesn’t relate to us, as clearly Jesus was directing the warning to the religious leaders at the time who clearly rejected and killed him.
Or you might think that it relates to someone like me, to the religious leaders of this day, elders (PC members), ministers of religion, bishops, priests, Popes!
And yes, I would agree there is a clear message for me as a leader in the church, to be obedient to God, to be careful to nurture his people and not to take advantage of them. And sadly, we know of too many cases where the warning from this parable has not been heeded by leaders in the church.
But I think the message is for us all. In verse 43 Jesus says the kingdom of God will be given to a people who will produce its fruit. I may be a particular leader in that kingdom, but we are all in God’s kingdom and as the rightful owner God expects us to produce good fruit. He has given us all we need to do that. He has given us his word in the bible to learn and grow, he has given us his Son Jesus, that we might live in his grace and is an example for us to live like, and he has given us the Holy Spirit to live in us that we might bear much fruit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And in John 15 Jesus says that we have been chosen to bear fruit, fruit that will last. He sends us out to proclaim him as Lord, who with his Father is the rightful owner of this world in which we live and are here to care for, not to ruin like the tenants who let the garden get destroyed in my opening story. He sends us out to make disciples that others who up to now have been disobedient, may ‘change their minds’, repent, and follow their creator. Jesus spent his time with sinners, tax-collectors, prostitutes, they repented and followed him.
There is, definitely a message in this parable for us, even if it’s as simple as ‘will you accept or reject Jesus?’.
Let’s pray: Jesus, we thank you for the way you teach us through your word, with stories that still speak to us today. May we always have ears to listen, to take heed and obey. May we accept your authority in our lives, trusting in you as our cornerstone. And may we bear much fruit for your glory. In your name we pray, Amen.