1
Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My
beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2 He dug it and
cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a
watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he
expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. 3 And now,
inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my
vineyard. 4 What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not
done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild
grapes? 5 And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I
will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down
its wall, and it shall be trampled down. 6 I will make it a waste; it
shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers
and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain
upon it. 7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of
Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he
expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!
Matthew
21:33-46
33
"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.
34 When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants
to collect his produce. 35 But the tenants seized his slaves and beat
one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other
slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way.
37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, "They will respect
my son.' 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to
themselves, "This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his
inheritance.' 39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard,
and killed him. 40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what
will he do to those tenants?" 41 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."
42 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'? 43 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. 44 The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces;
and it will crush anyone on whom it falls." 45 When the chief
priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he
was speaking about them. 46 They wanted to arrest him, but they
feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.
Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard... There was a landowner who planted a vineyard...
- Simply hearing the reading from Isaiah and the reading from the Gospel of Matthew should make it easily understandable that the two parables are similar. Both involve vineyards and unexpected and unhoped-for harvests. It seems clear that Jesus' parable is based on Isaiah's; the details of the watchtower and the wine press show that. Both parables tell of a harvest that was not what was expected or wished for. The results that follow or might follow in the case of the parable in Matthew are not pleasant.
- Isaiah tells of a vineyard belonging to his “beloved” that, despite all the preparations and proper care, only yields “wild grapes” that cannot be made into wine or even eaten. So the vineyard's owner will cut down the hedge, tear down the wall, plow the vineyard under, and let the wild animals and the passers-by trample it down. Isaiah explains the parable, saying the vineyard is Israel and Judah, nations who's people have not brought forth a proper harvest of justice and righteousness. This justice and righteousness is justice for the poor and righteous action for all who live in the land. Because of this lack of justice and righteousness, the land will left for raiders and invaders to take and trample underfoot. Soon enough the Babylonians would come and take the bulk of the people into exile in Babylon.
- At the time, many of the people of Israel felt that since they were the chosen people in the promised land, their situation was divinely protected and unassailable by their enemies. It did not matter what they actually did, since their place in the world and before God was settled. They could not imagine something happening to change any of this and the idea of foreign invasion and exile was unthinkable... right up to the entrance of the Babylonian armies into the city of God.
- Jesus takes this same image of the vineyard a step further. His description of the vineyard is very much like Isaiah's and this borrowing is deliberate. Jesus is going to tell a challenging parable aimed straight at the religious authorities of the time. There are differences. The vineyard is not at fault; there are not wild grapes like the ones Isaiah described. The harvest of grapes is a good one, but those who are tending the vineyard are not willing to pay what is owed to the landowner. They go so far as to mistreat, beat, and kill those whom the landowner has sent to get is owed. Finally the owner sent his son, who should be respected as the landowner would be respected. Instead the son is cast out of the land that is his and killed. Jesus asks the crowd what would come next, and they respond "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."
- Matthew makes sure his readers understand that Jesus is speaking to the chief priests and the Pharisees of the time, those who saw themselves as the gatekeepers of God's kingdom, the ones who could decide who's in and who's out. They are the one's from whom the kingdom will be taken. God's favour and grace remain with his people and now new people will be added to it.
- In the two parables, the offences that incur wrath are different. In the first, the vineyard will not bear the fruit of justice and righteousness. In the second, the tenants wish to take the harvest for themselves, even to the point of killing the son of the landowner. "This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.' They have either forgotten or refused to remember that they are steward of the land, working in the name of another who really does own the land. Because of that, they will lose their monopoly on the Kingdom.
- This brings us to today, the now, the present. Do these parable still have meaning for us? Indeed, they do! As always, the Scripture is incredibly modern in its message.
- The Isaiah parable is very current because justice is still wanting for the poor and the dispossessed. The church which is to be the voice and the protector of the poor and the forgotten has in many cases insulated itself from just those people. The righteousness Christians are to show the world often has more to do with how they act toward others in the grace of God than how they speak of God and defend what they think God wants.
- Jesus' parable reminds us that we are stewards, ministers, and recipients of God's grace and not the source of that grace. Neither are we the ones to decide what, where, and to whom God's grace will be limited to. It might be good for us to stand in awe of the unlimited nature of the grace of God.
- In Isaiah's parable, the prophet says Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard... The song he sings is one of love for the nation that the vineyard represents. It is a cry asking for return and renewed fidelity. It is a call to the one who is loved to be loved again. It is a song calling for correction, to be sure, but it is the call for correction, that says, like a parent or spouse “you are hurting yourself, and I will correct you for your good.” To use an often comedic cliché, “ This hurts me more than it does you.” It is a song of tough love, and as you know tough love is often toughest on the one who offers it. In Matthew's Gospel, this parable is preached mere days before the crucifixion and we know what an example of love that is.
- For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.
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