The entire purpose of the parable of the
“wicked tenants” is to evoke a question in our minds. How will God react to our
rebelliousness? At once, Jesus is able
to drive home the realities of the current world, while using them to
effectively underline the grace and mercy of a God whose patience seems endless
at times. The story is one familiar to
Jesus’ Jewish audience. In the parable
of the wicked tenants, Jesus is making use of a story familiar to the Jews. Found in a passage at the heart of Israel’s scripture
is the proclamation of the great prophet Isaiah, who identifies Israel as God’s
vineyard:
“Let me sing for my beloved my love song
concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a
vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug
it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in
the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but
it yielded wild grapes. And now, O
inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my
vineyard. What more was there to do for
my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes,
why did it yield wild grapes? And now
I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be
trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I
will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and
the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but
behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but
behold, an outcry!” - Isaiah 5:1-7
Such a story lay at the core of Israel’s
national identity, such as it was in a 1st century consisting of a
Promised Land occupied by a pagan Roman army.
So what motivates Jesus to share his
re-telling of this piece of Israel’s prophetic tradition? In order to understand the point Jesus’ is
making, it’s helpful to note a subtle change that Jesus has made to the
plot. In Jesus’ version, it isn’t the
vineyard itself that is being judged, but rather the tenants responsible for
it. Jesus is asserting not just that the
“tenants” (read religious authorities) are guilty of mismanagement, but that
they have actually rebelled and attempted to claim ownership themselves. At this point it becomes easy, dangerously
easy, to fall right in line with Jesus’ point, condemning the leadership that
had so corrupted the religious life of a people. And yet…can we really claim to be so
dissimilar from the Pharisees of Jesus’ day that we so villainize? If we honestly examine our own lives we see that
we attempt, almost daily, to make ourselves the king or queen of our own little
corner of the world we inhabit. Despite
our continual disobedience, despite the rebellion that characterizes our
everyday lives, God continues to give us opportunity after opportunity to
repent, to cease our rebellion against him and recognize his ultimate authority. In the course of human history, God has
repeatedly acted in an effort to bring us to our senses. First he acted in the communal life of his
people Israel. As God would say through
the prophet Jeremiah, “From the day that your fathers came out of the land
of Egypt to this day, I have
persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day.” (Jeremiah
7:25) However, Jeremiah would go
on to indict his people, stating that “you have
neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear, although the Lord persistently sent to you all his
servants the prophets, saying, ‘Turn now, every one of you, from his evil way and evil deeds, and dwell upon the land that the Lord has given to you and your fathers from
of old and forever. Do not go after other gods to serve and worship
them, or provoke me to anger with the work of your hands. Then I
will do you no harm.’ Yet you have not listened to me, declares the Lord, that you might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your
own harm.” (Jeremiah 25:4-7) As the
ultimate act of patience, like the owner of the vineyard in Jesus’ parable, God
sent his own Son. The connection isn’t
concrete, but is certainly implied, especially when we consider that this is
the only occurrence of “beloved” in Mark’s gospel except for usages at Jesus’
baptism (1:11) and the transfiguration (9:7).
The Greek of the sentence “come, let us kill him” is a match to the
Greek Old Testament version of Genesis 37:20, when Joseph’s brothers plot his
murder, motivated by jealousy. We can
even go a step further and compare the reception of the vineyard owner’s son in
the parable, to Jesus’ reception in history.
In the words of the author of Hebrews, “so Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify
the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp
and bear the reproach he
endured.” (Hebrews 13:12-13)
As interesting as all
this is, to me at least, it still leaves unanswered the question, what does
this have to do with us? We aren’t
Israel, and we certainly aren’t the religious leadership of Jesus’ day. While it is true we are often, if not continually
in rebellion against God, how does this change any of that? Jesus statement “what will the owner of the vineyard
do?” mirrors the Greek in Isaiah 5:5, where God asks what he will do with his
vineyard. Rather than destroy it, God
has decided to reclaim it, by vindicating the one the world has chosen to
reject. Jesus’ statement
comes straight from the psalms:
“The stone that the builders
rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.” – Psalm
118:22-23
It’s a play on the fact that son in
Hebrew, ben, sounds a lot like stone
in Hebrew, eben. The son has become the stone, and more than
that, the cornerstone. While such a view
doesn’t entirely negate God’s judgment on the rebellious, it shows that more
than vengeance God is interested in vindication. This idea of what the gospel is, in a sense
God’s universal reclamation project, is at the heart of Christian proclamation. Peter shares it in one of his first sermons,
speaking before the council, when he states, “this Jesus is the stone that was
rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.” (Acts 4:11) Paul, when writing to the Romans, quotes Isaiah
28:16, where the prophet delivers God’s words to Ephraim and Jerusalem, saying,
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and
whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” (Romans 9:33) In his first epistle Peter writes: “for it
stands in scripture: ‘behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen
and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’ So the
honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, ‘the stone that
the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,’ and ‘a stone of stumbling, a
rock of offense.’ They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were
destined to do.” (I Peter 2:6-8) Paul,
when speaking of how we Christians are together a structure, a holy temple in
the Lord, refers to “Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.” (Ephesians 2:20) It is evident in the gospel of John that
Jesus is aware of the role he will play, despite his rejection, because he
tells his opponents that if they tear down this temple, in three days he will
raise it up again. Jesus has become the
center of our worship, the way that we have access to God. The cross, an instrument of torture, has been
turned it into a symbol of the graciousness of God. What began as rebellion has ended in reclamation
and reconciliation. We even see the
hearts of rebellious individuals reclaimed, as they become part of the telling
of the story of God’s gracious action.
Peter, the one who denied his Lord on that fateful night, and Paul, at
first a persecutor of the church of God, would know something about God’s
ability to reclaim hearts, reconciling them to him. If we take just a moment to consider the
magnitude and scope of this good news, this gospel, then the words of the psalm
will indeed ring true, “it is marvelous in our eyes.”
