Lent 5

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Lent 5
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: April 1, 2001


TEXT: Luke 20:9-19 – The Parable of the Tenants in the Vineyard

ISSUE: The Parable of the Tenants is not a Parable of the Kingdom, but a Parable of what the world is like. It is in great distress and rebellion. Human nature is so foolish as to think it can destroy God. A nurturing vineyard lies in ruin from the killing and stoning of God’s prophets. But the cornerstone, which is rejected will rise up to be the cornerstone of a new Kingdom of God.

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Here’s a fascinating parable told by Jesus but has very likely been interpreted by Luke and the early church. It has interesting and mixed images of a vineyard and stones.
This Parable of the Tenants in the Vineyard is one with which we must be careful in our interpretation. We may be to quick to think we have the parable all figured out. The parable is easy to allegorize. The Landowner is seen as God who gives a great piece of land to his people. When he sends his servants to collect his portion of the fruit, they are treated with cruelty, just like God’s prophets were treated. The son, we immediately think of as Jesus, was sent with the hope that the crowds would listen to him, but he is crucified and killed as well. What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others. The others are depicted in the parable as the scribes and chief priests, and the Jews. The Vineyard of God, then will be given to the Gentile Christians. This was and still is a very poor interpretation of the parable as it is clearly anti-Semitic. Fact of the matter is that Gentile Christians have themselves been just as quick to throw out God’s prophets as some of the Jewish leadership rejected Jesus and others. Remember the Holocaust and how one of the most Christian countries in the world treated Jews and others, while other Christian countries turned their heads to what was going on. Remember the rejection and assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., some years ago in this country. One of the first sins of the church was its anti-Semitic stance. Jewish people were often scapegoats for the Romans, because the early church was overpowered by them, and coddled up to them for protection. It is so important that in this season of late Lent and Holy Week that we be careful not to become anti-Semitic.
In the world that Jesus himself lived in there was a great deal of injustice which led to oppression and impoverishment. There were absentee landlords who had usurped peasant lands, and left them to become tenants on their own land. While they tended vineyards of their landlord, they would plant food for themselves between the rows on the land, for which landlords would also demand a percentage. These demands along with Temple taxes and Roman taxes created great resentment and a hot bed of rebellion. When Jesus speaks of a landlord who comes to collect, the parable got the people’s attention.
Jesus’ parable is thought to be based on a parable of the Vineyard in the Hebrew Scripture of Isaiah 5:1-7. A man builds a vineyard clearing the land, fertilizing, digging the soil, clearing the stones, and plants the finest vines. But at the time of harvest the grapes are all sour, everyone. What will the owner do? He destroys the vineyard by drought, by allowing it to be trampled by animals, and becoming overgrown with weeds. The point is that God has brought forth a good nation, but it turned sour with injustice and murder.
In Jesus’ parable, however, the landlord, God, is not quite so quick to destroy the vineyard. Rather, he sends his messenger, a prophet, to check the fruit. When the tenants kill the messenger, the Landlord-God sends still another prophet who is badly treated, and still another, and still another. Finally, he decides to send his own son; surely, they will listen to him. Jesus’ parable presents a more merciful God, a stunning God who would even in the midst of the tenants violence dares to presume the best, that surely the tenants would not kill the son. They do with a belief that they will inherit the land for themselves. If Jesus is originally telling this story, who is the “son?” It is possibly Jesus’ own mentor, John the Baptist. He was a prophet, a real child or son of God, who came to God’s people and called for repentance, change, a turning around to God. John had a pleading ministry, and it killed by the powers of the world. The people cannot grasp the mercy, the compassion of the messenger, and of the landlord-God. What will the landlord do? As the world understands things, the landlord will come and destroy those tenants, and give the vineyard to others. Is Jesus addressing a corrupted leadership? Probably so. Is he addressing a corrupted world? You bet!
Jesus and his contemporaries were living in a time of great despair. They were dominated by a cruel nation. Their leadership collaborated with the enemy. The Temple had become corrupt. Injustices, oppression, and heavy taxation prevailed. Finally, when it could not be tolerated any longer there was a revolution, and the Romans destroyed Jerusalem tearing down the massive Temple, stone upon stone. When Luke, and Mark, and Matthew pick up this parable of Jesus’ their world was either on the very verge of, or had just experienced the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. Their world was in rubble. The vineyard of Jerusalem is destroyed. Hatred and animosity prevail. This parable is not about the Kingdom of God. This parable is about the world, a world in rubble.
We too know what a world in rubble is like. We’ve seen pictures of Europe after World War II, and the bodies of soldiers and holocaust victims. We’ve seen the rubble of Korea and Vietnam and not only the rubble of material things, but the rubble of people’s lives as a result of the trauma of war. We’ve seen the rubble of Iraq, and the rubble of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. We saw the rubble of American cities after the riots in the 60’s. We see the rock throwing today between the Palestinians and the Jews. God wills peace, mercy, compassion, and we still spend billions on the military, when our schools are in rubble. God calls us to love and the avoidance of killing and American states re-instate the death penalty. The world has always hated and rejected the prophets and the sons of God. The world is rebellious and defiant. Every great nation that rejected God has fallen, has met its demise. Yet the Tim McVeigh’s and the unabombers persist. Terrorism and counter terrorism prevails, along with road rage and street violence. We live in a culture like so many in the past that tends to make less room, and less time for God, referred to by some as the ‘de-Godded’ culture. Most everything else is more important that our time with God, with our spirituality, with our religious life. The vineyard of God is in ashes and rubble abounds. Even Christ is crucified and destroyed. And a world of justice and fairness is an illusion. What will God do? The parable of the world has a grim conclusion.
What are we to do? After the great wars and the cities in rubble, after earthquake destructions, after pain and suffering and the storms that tear up our lives, people are inclined to go sorting through the rubble to find meaningful things, trinkets from their past lives. They seek out the things that will help them to rebuild the future. What does this text mean: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” A world and people must begin the renewed search for a cornerstone, often the very one rejected. There needs to be a search for the cornerstone that is Christ who helps us to replant a fruitful vineyard, and a world that is based on a compassionate, merciful and sacrificing God. In the end there is the new beginning. Out of the ashes of Lent and the rubble of our lives comes a God who dares to send his Son again, who lifts him up. He is the cornerstone of the new age, resurrected out of the rubble. With Christ as the cornerstone of the vineyard, and with all that Christ stands for and represents in terms of sacrifice and love, we see the hope and the potential for the rebuilding of the land, the new vineyard, the Realm and Domain that is God’s. It is a mighty stone in whose shadow we stand in judgment, as well as in the shadow of mercy, love, and compassion. The very Christ who was condemned and rejected is raised up from the rubble as the new cornerstone of God’s world of love.