“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

“It’s seems like a kind of harebrained scheme to me, as I wonder how these stupid tenants ever think they’re going to get away with it. I mean, they’re kind of like the guys who run Ponzi schemes — don’t they realize that eventually it’s all going to unravel? Jesus seems to think so. Because after telling this parable, Jesus, at least according to Matthew, asks the critical question: “When he owner of the vineyard returns, what will he do to those tenants.” And then, right on cue, the Pharisees and the chief priests, like a couple of Costellos to Jesus’ Abbot, fall for the trap hook, line, and sinker: “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.” Which opens up the opportunity to explain the punch line of this dark joke until at last they get it…and then want to get him.

The parable and the larger part of the story it occupies fulfill several narrative and theological goals for Matthew. 1) It is part of the build-up of tension and suspense that has percolated throughout the gospel but now approaches its crescendo in the days between Jesus’ clearing out of the money changers and his betrayal and arrest. 2) It invites contemporaries of Matthew to see the Pharisees and chief priests in a less than flattering light and for this reason, perhaps, either to give this story of Jesus a second hearing or, if they’re already believers, to be encouraged in their decisions to follow Jesus. 3) It offers a theological explanation for why the Temple was destroyed and thereby once again confirms his community in their faith. I can sympathize somewhat with these reasons when Matthew’s community is in the minority, and is likely suffering hardship and perhaps persecution. We’re glimpsing an exchange from an unhappy, even bitter sibling rivalry, and while it’s uncomfortable we’ve seen enough of this kind of thing to at least make sense of it. The trouble is, the fledgling Christian movement that Matthew represents went from underdog to darling-of-the-Empire in just a couple of centuries, and ever since passages like this have fanned the flames of anti-Semitism and done some serious harm. Like a friend of mine recently said, “I think that Matthew’s point in this next week’s gospel was, ‘you are going to get yours, you nasty @#$%&!’” Moreover, as she also said, “This section of Matthew seems like week after week of self-vindication, and it has been USED that way over the centuries.”

Why on earth do these guys think that they’re going to inherit the vineyard? Oh, I know, it’s a legal possibility. But it’s not like that landlord has disappeared. He’s sent servants, and more servants, and then his son. Who’s to say he doesn’t have another son, or more servants, or an army, or at least a gang of thugs at his disposal to take care of these tenants. They’re crazy, I’m tell you, just like Bernie Madoff and all the other dudes all the way back to Charles Ponzi, thinking they can get something for nothing. They’re crazy. But they’re not half so crazy as this landowner! Think about it. First he sends servants, and they’re beaten, stoned, and killed. Then he sends more — not the police, mind you, or an army, just more servants — and the same thing happens again. So where does the bright idea come from to send his son, his heir, alone, to treat with these bloodthirsty hooligans? It’s absolutely crazy. Who would do such a think? No one…except maybe a crazy landlord so desperate to be in relationship with these tenants that he will do anything, risk anything, to reach out of them. This landowner acts more like a desperate parent, willing to do or say or try anything to reach out to a beloved and wayward child, than he does a businessman. It’s crazy, the kind of crazy that comes from being in love. “What will the landlord do when he comes?” Jesus asks, and all they can imagine is violence: “He will put those wretches to a miserable death.” But notice — it’s not Jesus talking right now. They condemn themselves. That’s part of Matthew’s narrative strategy, I suspect, to have his opponents voice their own condemnation. But it invites us to consider a different question: not what will that landlord do, but what did that landlord do. And to that question we have Jesus’ own answer: the landowner sent his son, Jesus, to treat with all of us who have hoarded God’s blessings for ourselves and not given God God’s own due. And when we killed him, God raised him the dead, and sent him back to us yet one more time, still bearing the message of God’s desperate, crazy love.” (…in the meantime, David Lose, September 28, 2014, Crazy Love)

We believe that evil/sin entered into the world through the Garden of Eden, just as sin entered into the vineyard of our parable. While G-d was away, Adam and Eve were tricked – duped by their own selfishness. While the landowner was away, selfishness began to seep into the minds of the tenants. They were doing all the work, why should they share any with anyone, even the owner. They wanted to be able to do what they wanted with the things they had. And, most importantly, they didn’t want to share, even if that meant with the one who gave them everything they had. What could the landowner do? This is of course how evil, and sin, and selfishness spreads within us, and within our society. It begins as a small pin point, a small thought, a simple action, and then it grows and spreads until our lives are filled with selfishness and ego.

The messes in our lives come where either we, or those in power, place pride above people, greed above charity. We use words to insult one another. We mistreat each other with actions like only thinking of ourselves, and hoarding what we have, letting greed get the better of us. We stone each other with nasty rumors. We put ourselves above and in front of everyone else. Finally, when the landowner comes seeking results, or when you and I want some hope that the messes we have created can be cleaned up – where do we turn for Hope? Where is our Hope? The good news my friends, the good news is that it does not have to be this way.

Is there a happy ending in the vineyard from our parable? Well we take solace in knowing that the owner, G-d, does not give up on Adam and Eve, does not give up on the vineyard, and does not give up on us. In other words, no matter how much we mess things up, G-d will not give up on us. You see, the nature of G-d is not to stay removed from us, but to continue to reach out to us in very tangible ways, to remind us that G-d loves us. How? Well, through God’s Word, in the ingathering of the community of faith, through the Word incarnate, Jesus Christ, and in the sacraments. Is it a stretch for us to see how through Word and Sacrament, through Holy Baptism, and the Lord’s Table, that the “vineyard” has been set for all of humanity? Our goal is to see, as David Lose so eloquently puts it, how “Crazy G-d’s love is for us through Jesus Christ.”

Pastor Dave