Confrontational Parable Number 2
"Hear another parable. There was a householder who planted a vineyard...and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. When the season of fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants, to get his fruit; and the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another....Afterward he sent his son to them....But...the tenants...killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?" Matt. 21:33-40, RSV.
The second confrontation parable takes the sequence a giant step forward. Whereas the parable of the two sons pictured the resistance of the Jewish leaders in a passive mode, this one is active--so much so that it points both to rejecting the prophets and to killing the son. It would be almost impossible for any Jewish hearer to miss the allusion to God's much-loved Israel in the description of the vineyard. Isaiah 5:1-7 describes that vineyard in quite similar terms to what Jesus employs. But in Isaiah the fault lies with the vines, whereas here it is with the tenants. In both cases, the result of failure is divine judgment.
We can learn several lessons from the parable of the tenants. The first is that God is long-suffering. He does not send just one time, but keeps on sending. He does not give up easily on His children. A second lesson is just as obvious--the perversity of the tenants. If the major theme of the gospel story is God's love, a counterbalancing theme is humanity's rejection of that love. The tragedy of both the parable and history is that so often it has been God's own chosen people who have spurned His overtures.
The third lesson is the centrality and finality of sending the Son. Yet the tenants kill even Him. The parable pictures that act as ultimately bringing judgment on them.
A fourth lesson is that even though God's judgment may be long in coming, it is nonetheless certain and irreversible. The judgment of the particular tenants in Matthew 21 will come with the destruction of Jerusalem.
The parable's fifth lesson is the transfer of God's kingdom from the nation of Israel to a new people. "I tell you," Jesus says in His most explicit statement on the topic, "that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit" (Matt. 21:43, NIV). That new people is the Christian church, which has inherited a continuation of the Jewish covenant promises and responsibilities.
May God help His new people not to exhibit the same perversity as the old.
"Hear another parable. There was a householder who planted a vineyard...and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. When the season of fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants, to get his fruit; and the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another....Afterward he sent his son to them....But...the tenants...killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?" Matt. 21:33-40, RSV.
The second confrontation parable takes the sequence a giant step forward. Whereas the parable of the two sons pictured the resistance of the Jewish leaders in a passive mode, this one is active--so much so that it points both to rejecting the prophets and to killing the son. It would be almost impossible for any Jewish hearer to miss the allusion to God's much-loved Israel in the description of the vineyard. Isaiah 5:1-7 describes that vineyard in quite similar terms to what Jesus employs. But in Isaiah the fault lies with the vines, whereas here it is with the tenants. In both cases, the result of failure is divine judgment.
We can learn several lessons from the parable of the tenants. The first is that God is long-suffering. He does not send just one time, but keeps on sending. He does not give up easily on His children. A second lesson is just as obvious--the perversity of the tenants. If the major theme of the gospel story is God's love, a counterbalancing theme is humanity's rejection of that love. The tragedy of both the parable and history is that so often it has been God's own chosen people who have spurned His overtures.
The third lesson is the centrality and finality of sending the Son. Yet the tenants kill even Him. The parable pictures that act as ultimately bringing judgment on them.
A fourth lesson is that even though God's judgment may be long in coming, it is nonetheless certain and irreversible. The judgment of the particular tenants in Matthew 21 will come with the destruction of Jerusalem.
The parable's fifth lesson is the transfer of God's kingdom from the nation of Israel to a new people. "I tell you," Jesus says in His most explicit statement on the topic, "that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit" (Matt. 21:43, NIV). That new people is the Christian church, which has inherited a continuation of the Jewish covenant promises and responsibilities.
May God help His new people not to exhibit the same perversity as the old.
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