Let me tell you a story about an experience I had. I was leading a Bible study in a congregation where I had just begun working. At the end of our study we stood and held hands for a circle prayer – we would go around the circle and those who want to add their petitions do. We got to Cathy and she opened her mouth to speak and just started sobbing – big shaking sobs. She spoke her prayer, all the while sobbing. It was alarming to me. I thought, “Oh my goodness, what’s the matter? What’s she so troubled about?” I was also kind of disturbed that no one else seemed to react at all.
The next week it happened again. I gradually learned that this is just what Cathy does. It is a part of who she is. She opens her mouth to pray and the sobs just come falling out. Everybody knew it but me, but then I knew it too.
Sometimes you find yourself in some situation where weird things are happening and you think: There is a backstory here that I just don’t know yet.
That’s the way this text from Matthew strikes me. There is definitely a backstory here.
First, just consider where we are in the gospel, and we ask what has happened before this point. Flip back a few pages. Is Jesus responding to something that has just been said or done? Who is he speaking to, and who else might be listening in? Finally, where is he in his journey toward the cross?
With respect to this story of the Tenant Farmers, here’s what we know: It is one of a set of three parables. Jesus is speaking directly to the Chief Priests and Pharisees in the temple – but there are a lot more people watching and listening. It is late in his ministry; in fact, we are in that final week in Jerusalem; the night of his arrest draws near. The officials know who he is and they are pretty tense about his actions and teachings.
This is a conversation that has been going on for a while. They have been watching him for a long time, and now the Chief Priests and Pharisees approach Jesus in the temple and demand to know from where he gets his authority to teach, because they know he didn’t get it from them.
You could say this is all about a power struggle – and you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. It is about power, as many things in life are. But it’s actually about more than that. It’s about order and tradition. It’s about truth – truth as told in parable.
He begins this set of three with the parable of the father who asks his two sons to work in the vineyard – the one we heard last week. First son says yes but then never does the work; second son says no but then actually does the work. Which son is obedient to his father’s will?
He ends with the parable of the king who prepares a wedding feast, invites the guests on the A-list, who are all no-shows. The king then invites the entire D-list and has his party anyway, and we will come back to that one next week.
In between, he tells this parable, about the tenants who refuse to give the landowner what is rightfully his. Not only that, they rough up his messengers and kill his son.
Which brings me to another thing you should know about parables: they always have a cultural context. We want to know not just where this story sits in the gospel, but also where it sits in history. What is going on in the world Jesus is living in? Knowing something about this helps us to know what they were thinking when he talked about landowners and tenant farmers, vineyards, harvests, watchtowers.
Well, it’s not hard for the chief priests and Pharisees to get the cultural references here. Jesus is drawing from their own scriptures. They know that the vineyard is Israel and the landowner is God; it’s pulled right out of Isaiah 5: My beloved had a vineyard; he cleared it of stones, he planted it with choice vines, he built a watchtower in the midst of it.
They can deduce without much trouble that the slaves are the prophets of Israel. And if they didn’t know immediately, it soon becomes clear that in the parable they are the tenant farmers. And the vineyard they have been tending will be given to others.
It’s a conversation that has been going on for a while. There is tension in Israel. Just as the Chief Priests and Pharisees have some issues with Jesus’ authority, the people of Israel have issues of their own with the Chief Priests and Pharisees. These authorities are afraid of the crowds, Matthew says more than once. This speaks volumes.
Yes, this is a conversation that has been going on for a while, and still is. In every century, in every land, the gospel seeds have been sown, to borrow an image from another parable. The church has grown up and produced fruit of varying kinds in every land, flavored by the local conditions.
Given that, it is fair to ask where you and I are right now in this long conversation about big things. The parable raises questions about our trust in God as the authority in our lives; about how well we are doing at giving to the Lord the fruits that are owed to him; even about how we feel when the Lord brings in new workers, perhaps because we have ceased to be fruitful.
I wonder if we can write a different ending for the parable.
The Lord of the vineyard has said, that is enough. He is ready to remove the tenants from the land and bring in some new workers.
Because the old tenants have forgotten why they are there. They have stopped caring about what the Lord needs from them. By this time, they only care about what they can get out of it. They seem complacent. Self-satisfied. Even worse, anyone who challenges their complacency does so at great risk. Yes, they have pretty much stopped bearing fruit.
But imagine this: the new tenants approach the vineyard and the old tenants turn to them and say, welcome. We are glad you are here. We might have lost our way. Help us produce the best fruit for our Lord.
It’s a long conversation – a big story – that we are a part of, and we really only know our little part of it. We need one another – the rich and the poor, the urban and the rural, the Northern Europeans and the Sub-Saharan Africans, and everyone else. We need those who came before us and those who will come after us, to bear new fruit.
May you give thanks for the church all over the world.
May you keep your minds and hearts open to what the church might be in the future.
May your hearts be open and receptive to the Word and may your corner of the vineyard be fruitful.
