I think it’s hard for most of us to think of Jesus being a troublemaker. Even though I envision Jesus being gracious, loving, and welcoming, in the Gospels he was always stirring up trouble. So, it’s no surprise that the political and the religious leaders got anxious when Jesus came to town for Passover Week.
Jesus wasn’t and isn’t the only trouble-making religious leader. Paul, Francis of Assisi, and Martin Luther all had opponents. I even hear that some folks in the Catholic Church aren’t big fans of Pope Leo. People tend not to like preachers who step on their toes, especially if they are political or religious leaders.
Our reading from the Gospel of Matthew places Jesus in the Jerusalem Temple the day after he entered Jerusalem in triumph and then cleansed the Temple. These actions had put the religious and political leaders on edge. So, it’s not surprising that a group of religious leaders challenged Jesus authority to disrupt life in the Temple and then begin teaching there.
The Temple authorities wanted to protect their domain, so they demanded something like an ordination certificate or letter of authorization. I’m sure the Elders here at First Presbyterian will understand their concerns. You can’t let just anyone come into the church on a Sunday morning, disrupt the proceedings, before heading to the pulpit, and begin to preach. From what I know of Presbyterians, this would be very un-Presbyterian! Instead of producing a certificate of authorization, Jesus asked the leaders whether they believed John the Baptist was divinely authorized for ministry. When they refused to answer his question, he refused to answer their question. Yes, Jesus was a troublemaker(Mt. 21:23-27).
So, Jesus continued teaching in the Temple, using parables to convey his message. This morning we will focus on the second of these parables, which features a group of wicked tenants who conspire against a landowner who had planted a vineyard and then rented it out to tenants, whom he expected would tend it while he was off on a business trip. When the absentee landowner returned, expecting to get his share of the harvest, things didn’t go well because the tenants were in no mood to share! So, how will the landowner respond?
The parable of the wicked tenants is connected to the reading from Isaiah 5. I now invite you to hear it using The Message:
1-2 I’ll sing a ballad to the one I love,
a love ballad about his vineyard:
The one I love had a vineyard,
a fine, well-placed vineyard.
He hoed the soil and pulled the weeds,
and planted the very best vines.
He built a lookout, built a winepress,
a vineyard to be proud of.
He looked for a vintage yield of grapes,
but for all his pains he got garbage grapes.
3-4 “Now listen to what I’m telling you,
you who live in Jerusalem and Judah.
What do you think is going on
between me and my vineyard?
Can you think of anything I could have done
to my vineyard that I didn’t do?
When I expected good grapes,
why did I get bitter grapes?
5-6 “Well now, let me tell you
what I’ll do to my vineyard:
I’ll tear down its fence
and let it go to ruin.
I’ll knock down the gate
and let it be trampled.
I’ll turn it into a patch of weeds, untended, uncared for—
thistles and thorns will take over.
I’ll give orders to the clouds:
‘Don’t rain on that vineyard, ever!’”
7 Do you get it? The vineyard of God-of-the-Angel-Armies
is the country of Israel.
All the men and women of Judah
are the garden he was so proud of.
He looked for a crop of justice
and saw them murdering each other.
He looked for a harvest of righteousness
and heard only the moans of victims. (Is. 5:1-7)
While Jesus focuses his attention on the tenants, Isaiah focuses on the grapes. In Isaiah’s song, the landowner expected a harvest of good grapes. When it didn’t produce the appropriate harvest, he let the beloved vineyard fall into disrepair. Isaiah’s message to Israel was that if they didn’t bear good fruit, God would abandon them as well. In other words, Isaiah offers the people a word of divine judgment.
In the parable, the landowner expects to receive his portion of the harvest, so he sends representatives to take possession of his portion. However, the tenants killed or wounded two delegations of representatives. When he sent his son, thinking that the tenants would respect his son, they killed him as well. That’s because the tenants got it into their minds that if they killed the heir to the estate, the estate would fall to them. They paid for their mistaken belief.
The wicked tenants thought they would get their way through violence. This is a common view in our world, whether it is a mass shooting at a school or house of worship, a husband who beats his wife because she displeases him, or simply being a bully to get your way. While this is commonplace, Isaiah reminded the people of Judah that God expects justice, not the violence and bloodshed that God finds present among the people.
When Jesus finished his story, he asked his audience what they thought the landowner should do after the tenants killed his son. The crowd told Jesus that the landowner should “put those wretches to a miserable death and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.” After letting their response sit with the readers, Jesus answers with a word from the Psalms:
‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes’? (Ps. 118:22-23)
According to Jesus, he is the rejected stone, which means he will become the chief cornerstone of God’s realm. Then Jesus told the crowd that the kingdom of God would be taken away from them and given to another who will produce the fruit of the kingdom. This word has been interpreted in many ways, including anti-Semitic ones. But it is clear that Jesus had the leaders of the Temple in mind. By the time Matthew was written, the Temple was gone along with its leadership. So, they might conspire with the political leaders to kill him; they would not succeed in overturning God’s effort to inaugurate the kingdom of God.
We know that Jesus understands himself to be the son in this parable. As for the other representatives, Jesus might have in mind the prophets of old such as Elijah and Jeremiah, as well as prophets who were his contemporaries, including John the Baptist. When they stirred up trouble, the powers-that-be responded with violence. The same is true of modern prophets such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, and Oscar Romero, all of whom paid for their prophetic efforts with their lives.
Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of El Salvador, was gunned down while saying mass in the nation’s cathedral because he spoke out for justice in a land that was marked by violence and oppression. He responded to demands that he should stay out of politics or face the consequences by telling his critics:
A civilization of love that did not demand justice of people would not be a true civilization: it would not delineate genuine human relations. It is a caricature of love to try to cover over with alms what is lacking in justice, to patch over with an appearance of benevolence when social justice is missing. True love begins by demanding what is just in the relations of those who love. APRIL 12, 1979. [Romero. The Violence of Love (Kindle Locations 1120-1123). Plough Publishing House. ]
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, it was clear he knew that the authorities would put him to death. He used this parable to respond to their threats. Because they feared his popularity, the leaders waited until the cover of darkness to arrest him. Even as Isaiah reminded his readers that God expected justice not violence, from the people, Jesus revealed the motives of the religious and political leaders of his day who refused to seek justice and mercy while engaging in bloodshed.
Jesus reminded his audience that God expected the people to produce good fruit for the kingdom. So, what is the nature of this fruit that the landowner expects to receive from the people? Is it not, as Isaiah reminds us, the way we treat one another, especially those whom our world considers expendable? Oscar Romero offers us this word to the followers of Jesus in this age of bloodshed and unrighteousness.
A Christian’s authenticity is shown in difficult hours. By Christian, I mean every member of God’s people, whether layperson, religious, priest, bishop, or pope. And by difficult hour, I mean those circumstances in which following the gospel supposes a multitude of ruptures with the tranquility of an order that has been set up against or apart from the gospel. [The Violence of Love (Kindle Locations 419-421).]
What is the fruit we have to offer to God? How might we be transformed as we participate in the life of God in these difficult hours? The good news is that we do not go on this journey alone. The scriptures remind us that if we embrace the realm of God, we will bear fruit. We’ll bear fruit because we share in God’s divine presence through Christ our Lord.
Comments