Another Vineyard Parable
The agri-workers are the bad guys this time.
If you’ve some time this morning, really meditate on this parable. It’s uncomfortable in some ways, but it just may also be encouraging.
Some notes:
The vineyard belongs neither to the tenant farmers nor the servants, but to the vineyard owner.
You always need to be careful over-interpreting a parable, but while the religious leaders were certainly jealous of Jesus’ authority and popularity with the people, it doesn’t seem that they were envious of his place as the Son of God. They didn’t believe him to be so.
Jesus is both master storywriter and storyteller.
Matthew 21:33-46
“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower. Then he rented it to tenant farmers and took a trip. When it was time for harvest, he sent his servants to the tenant farmers to collect his fruit. But the tenant farmers grabbed his servants. They beat some of them, and some of them they killed. Some of them they stoned to death.
“Again he sent other servants, more than the first group. They treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.
“But when the tenant farmers saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come on, let’s kill him and we’ll have his inheritance.’ They grabbed him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
“When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenant farmers?”
They said, “He will totally destroy those wicked farmers and rent the vineyard to other tenant farmers who will give him the fruit when it’s ready.”
Jesus said to them, “Haven’t you ever read in the scriptures, The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The Lord has done this, and it’s amazing in our eyes? Therefore, I tell you that God’s kingdom will be taken away from you and will be given to a people who produce its fruit. Whoever falls on this stone will be crushed. And the stone will crush the person it falls on.”
Now when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard the parable, they knew Jesus was talking about them. They were trying to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, who thought he was a prophet.
Prayer
God,
It’s Monday! Help me as I begin this work week. I am excited about being productive and want to be so. Yet help me understand the productivity of your kingdom and not simply that of my culture who measures so much upon success.
By your spirit & in Christ,
Amen.