In 1st century Palestine, everyone was connected to the soil in some way. While they might not be farmers themselves, more than likely they had family or friends who worked the soil, or perhaps they were the owners of the land. That is certainly not the case anymore, and so perhaps we might miss some of the understanding of the agricultural metaphors that are found throughout Jesus’ teachings, especially in the parables, but that are also found throughout scripture. Going all the way back to the second chapter of Genesis, in the second creation story, and yes there are two very different stories, we are told that “the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the East… out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.” That is God is a gardener. Later, the prophet Isaiah says that God, and this becomes important for today’s passage from Mark, had a vineyard on a very fertile hill, and God dug it and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines and built a watchtower in the midst of it. Now metaphorically we are supposed to know in Isaiah that the watchtower represents the Temple, and that the vineyard is Israel, and in this telling in Isaiah, this song of the vineyard is a judgment on Israel. Then, of course, we have a reworking of that story here in the Gospel of Mark, which is also told in Matthew and Luke, which has become known as the Parable of the Wicked Tenants, even though the word wicked is not every actually used in the parable.
Once again, a man, who we assign the role of God to, prepares a vineyard and does all the work to prepare it to make sure it brings about a bountiful harvest, then he leases out the land to tenants to work the fields. Some translations use the term vinedressers, instead of just tenants, indicating that this vineyard is not just being entrusted to anyone, but to people who are specialized in their fields. As we think about whom the judgment is made against, that, I think, can play an important role. But we have to remember that the tenants are not the ones who do all the work, much of the work, and the hardest work, has already been done for them. They are recipients of others work. Then the owner goes away. Now, one of the problems we sometimes have when looking at parables, or more probably allegories, and an allegory is where the characters in the story compare to people in reality, is to try and make them very literalistic. Jesus is not saying that God has left humanity to our own desires. Instead, Jesus is very deliberately setting this story up for the priests, scribes and elders whom Jesus is telling this story to, many of whom we know were absentee landlords. That is, they owned land that they did not toil on, but which produced money for them. They are the ones who send servants to collect their share of the harvest, and so in the way Jesus tells this story, the way he structures, it, Jesus flips the story around on them. They want to identify with the absentee landlord, and yet they also know that they are the tenants that Jesus is talking about.
We as the reader also can see what’s being done here because of the brilliance of Mark’s literary construction, which, while I’ve talked about it, I haven’t really illustrated, and some of that is just the logistics of time, but this parable in particular shows the importance of reading passages in their context, of what comes before and what comes after, not just taking these passages as individual standing units simply because that is the way we are used to hearing them. and so just before Jesus tells this Parable, he has made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and then there is an interesting story in which Jesus encounters a fig tree, and it is without fruit. Now I’ve already said that the watchtower is often used as a metaphor for the Temple, does anyone want to make a guess what the fig tree is also a metaphor for? The Temple. And so, Jesus encounters this fig tree, without fruit, so the alarm bells in your head should be going off, and he curses the fig tree that no one will eat of it’s fruit again. Then the story stops, and Jesus enters the Temple and flips over the tables of the merchants and drives out money changers, and then quoting from Isaiah, says “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations. But you have made it a den of robbers.” And then we are quickly back at the fig tree again, which has withered and died. So, we move from fig tree without fruit, to the Temple with robbers, back to the fig tree which has know withered and died. The literary term for this, of a story found within a story, is called an intercalation, and we see it all the time know in film with rough cuts between scenes, but this was unusual in story telling in the ancient world, but it means that these two stories are connected. They build upon each other, that we should be making a clear connection that the work of the Temple is not producing any fruit, or at least no fruit that is useful to anyone other than those in charge. And then they challenge Jesus to tell them who gave Jesus the authority to do the things that he is doing, which he basically refuses to answer, and then goes into this parable. So, last week I said that what made the Parable of the Sower unusual was that Jesus gives us an interpretation of it, but here we are given meaning even before it begins.
So, the owner sets everything up, leaves people to produce a harvest, to bring forth fruit, and then sends his slave to collect what is due to him, but the tenants beat the slave and then turn him away. Then, another slave is sent, and that one too is beaten and sent away, and on it on it goes, with some being killed and some being beaten, but none of them are given the fruit that is due to the owner. So, finally, the owner says that he will send his beloved son, believing that they will respect him. This too should set off some alarm bells, because how is Jesus described by God in both the baptism and the transfiguration stories? As the beloved son. It might also make us think of the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, as Isaac is the son whom Abraham loves, the beloved. But, rather than respecting the son, they instead seize him, kill him and thrown him out of the vineyard. Now we might think this doesn’t make any sense. Why would the owner send his son when all of the slaves have been treated so badly? We have actually court records of these things happening, because if the owner was not strong enough to enforce the contract, then the tenants could hold onto the land and its bounty for themselves. Additionally, since the it is the heir who arrives, they might also think the father is dead, and so if they kill the heir then there is no one else to inherit, and again they can make claim to the land. I say that not because it helps with the interpretation, but so that we will know that this story would have made total sense to its original hearers, and so then Jesus asks, “What will the owner of the vineyard do?”
The owner has already shown incredible patience and control in continuing to send slave after slave, rather than doing something right at the start. In the Hebrew scriptures, the prophets are often referred to as slaves, because they are doing the will of God, not their own. Additionally, as Christians we talk about apostles, which means one who is sent, and so we have a reference here to both the prophets and the apostles, who were not always received well, and yet even seeing what had happened to those who had gone before, still continued to go out because they were doing what God had called them to do. Again, this is the example of discipleship, and the cost, that you will be persecuted and beaten and maybe even killed for doing the right thing, and this has nothing to do with being ultra-religious, because the people Jesus is addressing this to, those who are not bearing fruit, are also ultra-religious. Because it’s not just about bearing fruit, but about giving that fruit back to God, and we see this because immediately after this passage we have Jesus being asked whether it is lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, and Jesus says, “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God.” And the moral of that story is that everything is God’s.
In Leviticus, we read God saying, “the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants.” (Lev 25:23). In Joshua, God tells the people “I gave you a land on which you had not labored, and towns that you had not built, and you live in them; you eat the fruit of vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.” (Josh 24:13) That means it’s all God’s. Immediately after Isaiah’s Song of the Vineyard, Isaiah denounces those who “join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you.” That is people who have so much land that they are absentee landlords, so even before any judgment is made about those whom Jesus is telling this story is about, even before the son is killed, they are already shown to be ignoring the precepts, the heart of what they claim to believe, and so the judgment against them is not anything different than what the prophets had also proclaimed. Except there is a difference. In Isaiah’s telling of the vineyard, God destroys the entire vineyard, because God expected good grapes, but receive wild grapes, “Expected justice, but saw bloodshed, righteousness, but heard a cry.” But here, in Jesus’ telling, only the tenants will be removed, and the vineyard will be given to others. That’s why it may be important for us to hear vinedressers instead of just tenants, because it is not all the people who are under judgment, but just the Jewish leaders that Jesus is addressing. And it is not that the people who will replace them are Christians, because such a thing didn’t exist, but, at this time, it will be other Jews who understand God’s call to justice and righteousness, and Jesus’ call to discipleship.
It is also a call out in our in time, in all times, about those who seek religion and power not for the kingdom of God, but to enrich themselves, or others, who puts the cares of the world and themselves before the cares of God. Thinking back to the Parable of the Sower, it is those who are rocking ground or ground filled with thorns. It is anyone who obstructs God’s faithfulness and fruitfulness, and who desires power and prestige. And remember this applies most especially to those who consider themselves religious, and yet who do so many things that are counter the very thing that the Kingdom of God represents. It is those who are willing to abandon what they say is valuable, when the opportunity for power comes their way, and to use the power of religion to enforce it.
The Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor has said, “Jesus was not brought down by atheism and anarchy. He was brought down by law and order allied with religion, which is always a deadly mix. Beware those who claim to know the mind of God and are prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform. Beware those who cannot tell God’s will from their own.” That is as true in our time as it was in Jesus’ time, and it applies to us just as much as it applies to others, because all of us are willing to make compromises every now and then when it benefits us. I was fine when Harvey Weinstein was brought down, because I didn’t care about him, but when Charlie Rose went down, that hurt, because I liked and watched Charlie Rose, and so then we start doing the dance of “well, what he did wasn’t as bad…” But as President Eisenhower said in his first inaugural address, “a people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.” That too still rings true.
And so, what we see being played out again, and will come home for us next week, is that to be called to be disciples is to stand strong and to face the challenges, not when they are easy, but when they are difficult. Because the slaves here didn’t hesitate even when they knew what was coming. They instead did their master’s bidding and followed the way of the cross. We hear lots of talk these days about Christians being persecuted, although in my opinion rarely is it because they are being Christians, it has more to do with them being jerks, but what Jesus tells us is that if we are truly striving for the Kingdom of God, then of course persecution will come because the ways of God are not the ways of the world, and they challenge those in power to see and live and love differently, and so challenge will come. But what separates those who are the good soil, those who not only bear the abundant fruit, but also seek to give that fruit to God, are those who don’t wither in the face of trouble and persecution. Those who are willing to stand up for its principles, not because of what they may gain, but because it is the right thing to do. Because what the tenants didn’t understand was that they thought by killing the beloved son that they could gain the inheritance, but God was willing and ready and able to give that inheritance all along. In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he says, “in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.” (Gal 3:26-29) But we must be willing to follow Christ, and to stand up for what is right, to bear the fruit of the Kingdom.
This coming Saturday is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and while we might think it can’t happen again, we all know that it does all to often, and so what are we going to do? How will we be known and judged. Take a look at this video from 9 Holocaust survivors… But it’s about more than just saying it, but about doing it. That when God asks for the fruit of our lives, we are ready to give what God calls for. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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