Every time I would visit my paternal grandparents as a kid, I was always less than enthused by their choice of entertainment. It seemed like they were only ever watching the news on repeat or else they were listening to the farm report… I know, exciting times for a small child. It took me a long time to realize that they were doing so because they were keeping an eye on the prices to get an idea of what to expect from the harvest that fall. Because, like the owner in this Gospel story, my grandparents had others who rented out the family farm to tend to it, and then they got a portion of the sales every year. It’s why, no matter what time of year our birthdays were, we all got our “birthday” money in September after the harvest had come in.
Fortunately for our family, the people who rented out our farmland were a lot kinder and more respectful than the tenants in today’s Gospel; they even just bought the land when my family sold it after my grandpa’s death. Yet, Jesus’s story today isn’t even really about agriculture at all. Actually, neither is our Isaiah story. Despite all of the focus on vineyards, those vineyards serve as the backdrop to help people see their situations with new eyes. Jesus and Isaiah are not calling the people out directly but inviting them to see themselves in the stories and how their behavior might change as the result of these new perspectives.
Isaiah is illustrating that the people of Israel are not living up to God’s standard for them. God gave them this great land and everything that they would need to thrive, but instead of thriving as God’s faithful people, the Israelites were not obeying God and were constantly turning their backs on God. They were the wild grapes in this story, when God expected well-cultivated grapes. This is still pre-Babylonian Exile, so Isaiah is tasked with telling them this in order to get them to change their ways. God still wants them to thrive and bear good fruit, but that means that something is going to change. I think it actually really pains both Isaiah and God to threaten the trampling of these vineyards, i.e. the pain and hardships that the Israelites are going to bear in the future exile, and they want to do everything in their power to help avoid this. But, ultimately, the decision to change or not rests with the Israelites.
And, Jesus tells this parable today, again not to talk about grapes and wine, but to allude to his upcoming death at the hands of the religious leaders and elders. The prophets of history represent the servants who go to try and hold the tenants accountable, while the Son represents Jesus, in this case that he will be killed because it is advantageous to the leaders of the day. There is so much being said here about the way that prophets, including Jesus were being treated by the people of faith, without Jesus even needing to spell it out for them. Because Jesus says these things and the religious leaders know he is talking about them and their actions.
“When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard these parables, they realized that Jesus was speaking about them. Although they sought to arrest him, they feared the crowds, who regarded Jesus as a prophet” (Matthew 21: 45-46). What amazes me is that even though the chief priests and elders heard this and knew that Jesus was talking about what they would do to him, it didn’t seem to make them reconsider; in fact, I think it made their conviction stronger, they simply realized now was not the time to act because they feared the crowds who still fully supported Jesus and wanted to hear what he had to say.
Today’s readings tell us a lot about God’s love for God’s people, as well as the fear and anxiety of the religious leaders of the day. So, what does this tell us for life today? I think in many ways, we can see ourselves as both the tenants of the land, as well as the servants who are sent. I’ve talked about before how common it is to say things like, “I’m a Christian, but…” We want to distance ourselves from other Christians, and sometimes we do this by hiding our identities. I know that I am especially guilty of this when I don’t want to be in pastor-mode outside of church, either because I don’t know how someone will respond or because I do know how they will respond. You try giving pastoral care to your neighbor before you’ve even had coffee in the morning! It’s so easy to claim our Christian identities when it is convenient for us. This, however, not only distances us from other Christians, but also from God.
But, God is still entrusting us with God’s mission for the world; to be the body of Christ, to trust in the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I love to think about how many people might be classified as prophets today who we as a whole have done our best to silence because they say things that make us feel uncomfortable; they are calling us to live more fully as the people of God and we don’t always want to listen.
We forget that as a part of our Holy Week liturgy we become the ones who yell, “Crucify him.” That this isn’t just something that we can blame on the religious leaders of the day, despite the fact that this has been done so much throughout the church’s history. This isn’t a story that is meant to throw all the blame at the Jewish religious leaders, but is meant to help us see who we are in the story too. The religious leaders saw themselves, but how do we read ourselves into the story. That will likely change at different times, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that no matter who we are, we are not the owner and we are not the Son because we are not God. But, we have a God who is full of grace and mercy, continually giving us the opportunity to grow and change. Despite the violence of today’s Gospel reading, the owner’s choice to keep sending people to talk to the tenants shows God’s unwavering love for us and willingness to keep trying. It shows that the story of our faith didn’t end with the prophets.
So, just as my family had people whom we trusted to tend to our family’s farmland, God continues to show trust in us to be the people God created us to be. We get to figure out for ourselves what that looks like with God’s guidance, but ultimately there is hope that we can and will produce good fruit in the world. I think it might even mean changing our perception of good because sometimes the best fruit is the stuff with some cuts and bruises that would otherwise mean it’s passed over in the store. So, I want to end today with a question for you, well actually two: What does it mean for you to produce good fruit and what do you need in order to do so?