“Our Rock” Colchester Federated Church, October 8, 2023, (Matthew 21:33-46) Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

To set the scene for our Gospel story in Matthew, Jesus is telling another parable. We remember from last Sunday that Jesus entered the temple and the chief priests and elders came to Jesus to question his teachings and authority.  We heard the parable of the two sons.  A father approached his two sons and asked them to work in the vineyard.  One son said that he didn’t want to work in the vineyard and then changed his mind and got to work.  The other son said that he would work in the vineyard, only he didn’t follow through.  Jesus asks, “Which one of these two did his father’s will?”  The response from the chief priests and elders is, “The first one.”[1]  (The son who said he didn’t want to work, but came around in the end to help his father—that is the son who did his father’s will.)

Then Jesus begins telling another parable: the parable of the tenant farmers.  Jesus sets the scene by saying that there was a landowner who planted a vineyard.  The landowner secured his vineyard—he put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower.  The landowner brought in tenant farmers to rent the vineyard and left for a trip.  Come harvest time, the landowner sent servants to the tenant farmers to collect his fruit.  But the farmers grabbed his servants—some of them they beat, some of them they killed, and some of them they specifically stoned to death.  So the landowner sent another group of servants, even more numerous than the first group.  The farmers treated those servants the exact same way.  Finally, the landowner decided to send his own son, thinking that surely the farmers will treat his son with respect.  Except that’s not what happens at all.  The tenant farmers are after the son’s inheritance, so they grab the son, throw him out of the vineyard, and kill him.  Jesus finishes telling this parable, turns to those in power, and asks, “When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenant farmers?”  Their response is, “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.”[2]

Jesus tells all with ears to hear and hearts to understand about how the stone that the builders reject has become the cornerstone.  God’s kingdom will be given to people who produce the fruits of the kingdom.  And in the end, whoever falls on this stone will be crushed.  Matthew tells us that when the chief priests and Pharisees hear the parable, they understand that Jesus is talking about them and want to arrest Jesus right then and there.  Keep in mind that we are in Matthew Chapter 21.  These teachings are taking place in the Temple on the Tuesday of Holy Week.  In just a few days after teaching this parable about the son thrown out of the vineyard and killed, Jesus will be killed.  For now Matthew tells us that the leaders fear the crowds—your ordinary people who were listening to Jesus and thought that he was a prophet—the leaders fear them, so hold off on arresting Jesus.

This is not an easy parable.  It’s worth clarifying a few things, especially to better understand what it can mean for us today.  To help with this, I turned to my favorite resource about parables from New Testament Professor Arland Hultgren called The Parables of Jesus: A Commentary.  Professor Hultgren reminds us that “a parable is a figure of speech in which a comparison is made between God’s kingdom, actions, or expectations and something in this world, real or imagined.”[3]  Jesus famously taught using parables and we are going to spend the next few Sundays hearing parables from Matthew’s Gospel.  The truth is that some parables are more famous than others—the lost sheep, the lost coin, the prodigal son, the Good Samaritan, the mustard seed.  Some of these parables Jesus told are familiar.  Others are less so.  Hey a batter doesn’t hit a home run every time at the plate!  Some parables are perhaps more meaningful (or at least easier to understand) for Jesus’ First Century audience compared to you and me.

All of this to say that the parable of the tenant farmers may not be as well-known when we contemplate the lessons that Jesus taught his followers.  It certainly would make a complicated bedtime story to tell our children with the violence depicted in how the servants and son are treated.  Though versions of the parable of the tenant farmers (also known as the parable of the wicked tenants) are found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and even the Gospel of Thomas.  This isn’t a random parable we only find in the Gospel according to Matthew as there are several versions of this same story that Jesus tells about a vineyard owner and wicked tenants and servants abused and killed and then the vineyard owner’s son killed. 

Now if we interpret the story symbolically (remembering that parables are comparing God’s kingdom, actions, or expectations to something in this world that could be real or imagined), we could understand that the vineyard owner is God.  The servants who are sent and mistreated are the prophets.  The tenant farmers are the leaders of the Jewish people.  The son is Jesus.  And the vineyard itself is the people of Israel—the Jewish nation, your average person.  The punishment that may come at the end of the parable is due to the leaders (the tenant farmers) rejecting the prophets (the servants) and Jesus (the son).  In effect, the leaders could be punished for rejecting everyone that God was sending to help the vineyard bear fruit. 

It’s really important to note that the problem in the parable as Jesus tells it is the tenant farmers not the vineyard.  That is important to clarify because otherwise this parable can be interpreted in a way that justifies Christian supersessionism (the idea that Christianity has replaced Judaism and Christians have replaced Jews as the people of God).  So the vineyard is not the problem.  The vineyard is not destroyed.  The vineyard would be given new leadership to continue, to bear fruit. 

In the future, as Christianity would one day become a separate religion it was remarkable that the early community accepted Jews and Gentiles.  As we hear this parable, we remember that Jesus was Jewish and the crowds who are sitting there in the temple hearing this parable are Jewish.  The Jewish leaders are afraid of the Jewish crowds because they know the wisdom in what Jesus is teaching and think that he’s a prophet—in line with other Jewish prophets.  The problem in the parable is the tenant farmers not the vineyard.  Because the farmers (religious leaders) are rejecting the servants (the prophets) and the vineyard owner’s son (Jesus).  The religious leaders are understandably upset by getting called out with this parable and want to arrest Jesus.  But the people are here for it because Jesus is speaking truth to power.

Here’s the point for us today.  We are responsible for bringing forth good fruit from this vineyard.  It would be way too easy to say that the tenant farmers were those in religious leadership in Jesus’ day and good thing Jesus came along.  So that’s all set!  Nothing for us to do here anymore.

Last week we sang the hymn “They’ll Know We Are Christians.”  One of the verses from that hymn captures the spirit of what this parable is about.  The lyrics are: “We will work with each other; we will work side by side.  We will work with each other; we will work side by side.  And we’ll guard each one’s dignity and save each one’s pride.  And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love.  Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”[4]

How will people know that we are Christians?  By our love.  Not our judgment.  Not our mean-spiritedness.  Not our spite.  Not our holier than thou attitudes.  Not our perfection.  Nope.  They will know we are Christians by our love. 

In the words of Jesus, “This is my commandment: love each other just as I have loved you.”[5]  We will work with each other.  We will work side by side.  We guard each person’s dignity and save each person’s pride.  This is about how we live in Christian community together.  This is about how this vineyard brings forth good fruit.  Because it’s the responsibility of Christian leaders to tend to the nurture of the community so that we will bear good fruit, to love each other just as Jesus commanded.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] Matthew 21:31, CEB.
[2] Matthew 21:40-41.
[3] Arland J. Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus: A Commentary, pg. 3.
[4] “They’ll Know We Are Christians” words and music by Peter Scholtes.
[5] John 15:12.

Photo by Boudewijn Boer on Unsplash