“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.” Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet. (Matthew 21:33-46, NRSV)
I will admit it. I do not like this text…
However I read something this week that Martin Luther said. “Martin Luther once said that sometimes you have to squeeze a biblical passage until it leaks the gospel.”
This passage needs a good hard squeeze and some massaging to get the gospel out. This is one of those weeks I will have a hard time saying, “The gospel of our Lord.” Or “The good news of our Lord.” Just where is it.
I mean really, the tenants are just crazy! The kill the servants when they come for what rightfully belongs to the landowner. But think for a moment, if the landowner planted and dug the wine press, it take a while for the vineyard to produce, so maybe these tenants have been here for at least 5 years, because that is the amount of time from planting to pay out. So here comes the servants wanting the landowners portion, and these tenants are like, “what do you mean we have been busting our buts for 5 years and here you come to take it away from us?”
So the kill the first servants, and the seconds…
And then the son comes, and they think that maybe if we kill the heir, the landowner will die away and we can get the land…
Really?
Crazy!
But who is crazier, the tenants or the landowner?
I mean really if you were the landowner would you send more servants after the first ones are beat and killed? Most of us would call the police, or send in our armies…
But the landowner sends in 2 sets of servants to get what is His, and when they are killed, He sends His son. What did He really think was going to happen?
So then Jesus asks the leaders a question, “Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” The leaders responded, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”
So since God is the landowner and the leaders the tenants, they just condemned themselves, because Jesus asked the question and they answered it…
But this all invites us to not answer “What would the landowner do?” but “What did the landowner do?”
And what did the landowner do? The landowner sent his son, Jesus. To help us see how we have hoarded God’s blessings to ourselves, and given out what He gave to us to give away. And when we did not like what the son had to say, we killed Him, and when we killed Him, the landowner raised Him up from the dead, and sent Him back to us one more time.Still telling us how crazy in love with us His Father is!
So live in the crazy love that God has for you, knowing that He will give it as many times as you need it, regardless of what you do to Him. He loves you that much!
aSacredRebel 