“Please sir, may I have some more?” Our hearts go out to Oliver, the poor orphan who has probably never had enough to eat, and is hopeful now that there mish be a second helping. He has a good reason, years of depravation, for hoping for more, but we, who have never starved also, and sometimes selfishly, desire “seconds”.
Who among us hasn’t enjoyed a second helping of the main course, and then asked for a second scoop of ice cream for dessert? Who owns only one necklace or one tie? Having seconds gives us a sense of wellbeing and security. We have earned this, we think to ourselves, earned our food, our clothes, our baubles, our wellbeing. Even if we rent our home, we feel it is ours. We forget that our work, our lives, are meant not only to benefit us, but to be lived and accomplished to the glory of God, that all good things come to us through the kindness and generousity of our Father in Heaven.
Jesus said, "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.
Today’s Gospel presents us with the second parable Jesus is offering to those scribes and Pharisees who were questioning Him in last week’s Gospel reading. To be a tenant farmer was a good living which provided the tenant with a home and at harvest time with a share of the crops. In the parable, the tenants represent Israel, that is, the Jewish community, which, has been established by the landlord, God. The first people to hear this parable may or may not have immediately understood this. For example, many, particularly the scribes and Pharisees, would have been appalled to think of themselves as tenant farmers. Pompous, and self-righteous, they might well have seen themselves as the landlord.
However, by the time this parable was presented to, and written down by, the Matthean community in the early Church, life was not quite as it was in Jesus’ day. The Matthean community is made up of Jewish Christians struggling to come to terms with the hostility of their Jewish brothers and sisters. Feelings are running high, and pressure is on for Jesus’ followers to leave the synagogues, where they are no longer accepted or welcome. The scene in the parable is still recognizable; for tenant farmers and landlords were still common in Matthean times. For Matthean church, however, the interpretation is different from that of those who first heard our Lord tell the story.
The Matthean community has been thriving. They understand about tenant farmers and that these tenants in the parable are prosperous, and yet, for them, the sense of kindred is not with the tenants, nor with the landlord. Faced with expulsion from the synagogues, they identify with the many servants who are repeatedly cast out by the tenants.
When harvest time arrives something not unheard of in Matthew’s day occurs. Ancient listeners would have been all too familiar with the scenario that is played out. The tenants have become comfortable on the land and have, in fact, begun almost to think of it as their own. Why should they have to part with any of the fruit of their labours? Why hand over anything at all to the landlord’s representatives, when they can by simply disposing of them keep everything for themselves?
So the tenants seized the slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.
What has happened to the tenants happens over and over again in our society today. The original agreement was that for their work they would have a home, security, and the pleasure that many farmers feel in the work they do, but for them, as for us, greed is a constant enemy. The temptation to think that all we accomplish comes to us, not as a gift from God, but because we have earned it, because it is our due. This is the norm in our society. We are not grateful. Instead we try to figure out, “How can I keep more of what I have?”.
Finally the landlord 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.'
We, hearing this story now, immediately make the connection between the son of the landlord and the Son of God, Jesus. We also realize that we are the tenants – but we shudder when we hear what happens to them when they, as we did and still do, seize and murder the son.
Jesus asked, “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.”
We sigh with relief. We excuse ourselves from being the first set of tenants and immediately identify with the “other tenants” the ones who will replace the murderers. But this is not an accurate way to see ourselves. No matter how we begin, when we stop working for love, living our lives out of love, doing everything we do for Jesus, and begin trying to take control, take credit for everything as being our work, our successes, then without even realizing it, we attempt to take possession of the field, and to claim the harvest as our own.
This parable is told to us today, so that we will recognize ourselves as the first set of tenants – and, realizing this, it would seem that all that awaits us is a miserable death. But we need to pay close attention to what Jesus is telling us!
We know that God chose us, as the landlord chose his tenants. God calls us to be in unity with Him and all people. God’s reaching out to us is best understood as His giving us everything we have – with no strings attached and without our deserving it, without our having done anything to gain it. Despite this, Jesus made it clear that we are the most precious beings in all creation – so valuable, as He proved on the cross, that we are worth dying for. We don’t have to earn God’s love; it is given freely. So, we have to ask, why would a loving God put us to a miserable death?
The answer to this question is that we might, indeed, wind up experiencing a miserable spiritual death, but, the parable is told to us this day to help us recognize that such a fate can only result because of our choosing. Yes! We have a choice!
The wicked tenants received all they needed from the owner, but they refused to accept his graciousness and turned their backs on him, his servants, and even his son. They, by their actions and inactions, cast themselves out of the vineyard, no less than Adam’s and Eve’s disobedience resulted in their loss of the benefits of the Garden of Eden.
The miserable death we might experience can only result from our failure to accept the gifts of God and respond to them in thanksgiving and by reflecting God’s love back on creation and all the people in it. It can only result from our selfishly acting as if the vineyard is all ours – or should be all ours and no one else’s, let alone God’s.
It is not so much that God’s patience with us might eventually run out, causing us to be put to a miserable death. It is more like our time runs out only because we wait too long to catch on to what God wants for us, and then we actually by our actions or inactions cast ourselves out of God’s vineyard, producing a self-inflicted kind of misery that we alone can create.
Today’s Gospel story provides for us a warning about what we can miss out on if we act like the wicked tenants. When we sing the familiar words, “Praise God from who all blessings flow,” we need to remember the actions that they imply –we need to remember that what we have is not ours to own, but is on loan from God.
We need to remember that God’s way of grace and love calls us to respond to our good fortune of living in His vineyard by reflecting that love in our actions toward others. God’s love is poured out to us in great measure so it can overflow from us, and through us, onto all creation.
The scribes and Pharisees heard the parable and identified with the landlord. They were fools. The listeners in the Matthean community heard the parable and felt a bond with the servants, those who were being cast out by the tenants. For that time, for them, that was the intention, because those Jews were soon to leave the synagogues and begin the new Christian community. Their comfort was knowing that even the Son, the one whom they followed and believed in, the one they loved, had Himself been seized, thrown out of Jerusalem, and for their sake crucified.
We are called to identify with the tenants, with those greedy, selfish people who feel justified in their actions. And because we know what will become of them, we are called to make a choice, and to change our lives. Those who must be “right”, the ones who are clever, the ones who plot, the greedy ones, are not Jesus’ followers. It is the ones who love, the ones who bend, the ones who listen, and give, and care for others, the ones who love, who can claim Jesus as Lord.
We have to choose; who do we wish to be? Do we wish to stand among the “right”, the self-justified, or among the righteous, risking everything for love of each other and of God? What choice will we make – the damning riches and glories of the world, or Jesus Christ our Lord?
Let us Pray:
O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness for the godly: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what you would have us do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in your light we may see light, and in your straight path may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.