Along the Way

Recollections of Our Trip Through Samaria

The Parable of the Tenants

11-1-09

Text: Luke 20:1-19 and Isaiah 5

● We have established before that Jesus always spoke and acted as if the great hopes of Israel (for Messiah) were coming true in him. Now, he is coming into Jerusalem (and the Temple) and acting as if he has every right to address even the corruption of the current authority structure (guards, chief priests, high priest).

            But, what has John got to do with this? Is this just a trick question? Jesus is acting with authority because that authority was conferred upon him publicly by John at his baptism. If John was a true prophet (which indeed the people believed he was), then Jesus was the world’s true Messiah. Authority is passing from the old way to the new way which is coming to fulfillment in Jesus.

● As Jesus tells the parable, the message of the vineyard would not have been lost his Jesus’ original hearers.

            We have a parallel account in Isaiah 5 [warning Judah about the impending judgment (Babylon) because of their unfaithfulness]

● Isaiah 5 is considered to be one of the finest literary pieces in the OT. The entire collection of writings of the prophets is considered to serve as a ‘bedrock’ for the NT, especially the teachings of Jesus in the gospels and their discussion of the Kingdom.

● Isaiah 5 is an allegory, as compared to the parables we have been considering. In a parable, a story is told to illustrate a single truth, without all the specific parts representing specific things. With a parable, the reader is left to reflect and make their own response.

● In an allegory, all the elements represent a specific truth and the meaning is explained with the context of the story.

The vineyard owner is clearly God. The vineyard is Israel. The tenants are the religious leaders entrusted with oversight and care. The servants were the prophets and the beloved Son was Jesus.

● The allegory has been crafted and told in such a way that it does not need any elaborate explanation (judging by the response). The people of Israel, God’s chosen vine, have failed to meet his expectations. He had heard their cries, rescued them, established them in a favorable land, guided them with his presence, had demonstrated both confidence and patience, but, in the final analysis, all of his efforts seem to have been futile. Israel had not only failed to ease the suffering of others, but had, in many ways, actually perpetrated it.

● In verse 3, the owner himself speaks to the audience and asks for their determination.

            Grapes were often grown on hillsides and surrounded by retaining walls and often backfilled with fertile soil. Grapes were a staple of society (wine and raisins) which required a great deal of intentionality.

Protective measures needed to be taken to ensure that the vineyard would be given ample opportunity to realize a harvest.

Only the “choicest vines” were planted. They produced small seeds and juice with a high-sugar content. The “bitter fruit” (bad fruit) was a way of describing the wild grapes which were small and often sour.

● It was understood that there was a substantial investment of time, energy and resources made by the owner. This was more than just a hobby (it’s why he built the winepress). He was doing all of this with a larger purpose in mind, a return on his investment: harvest.

● Yet, the story ends in disappointment. Having gone to great personal lengths and with every reason to expect a good harvest, he finds nothing but bad fruit. All of his efforts have failed to influence the harvest. It’s as if he had done nothing at all.

● There is great deal of “pathos” (pay-thos) or emotion involved in the question, “What more could have been done?” You sense both sorrow and futility.

            What parent of a wayward child hasn’t asked the same question? What spouse who is watching their marriage dissolve right before their eyes would not say, ‘What else could I have done?’

 The unspoken answer to the rhetorical question is “nothing” and it appears that we are about to witness the end of something; that the landowner is about to take some action based on the failure of the vineyard to produce.

● What was the fruit that God was looking for? What were we to understand about his expectations? I believe that they could best be summarized in (2) words: “righteousness” and “justice”.

● Righteousness was to characterize their response to God--- a rightly ordered life. Justice was to characterize the ways they were with each other--- a way of abandoning the self-absorbed life and prioritizing human need and relationships.

            It’s really “loving God” and “loving others”.

● Judgment would come, not as some arbitrary punishment by God for Israel’s failure to obey the Law, but as the inevitable result of Israel’s determination to choose a different way (as related to Rome: the way of violence and insurrection instead of the way of peace.

“What is wrong with our world?” Most of our declared concerns (terrorism, the war in Iraq/Afghanistan, the environment, political partisanship, economic inequality, etc.) are all merely symptoms of the real issue: Ignoring God; living as if he does not matter. And the story is clear: ignoring God has devastating consequences.

● Little has changed. Different names and places, but the description would be eerily similar. Isaiah could well have delivered this message for the first time amidst the backdrop of our 21^st century world and have been equally relevant.

Our culture could still be described as experiencing the continued thirst created by consumerism. Our culture still displays the endless pursuit of wisdom and strategies all designed to make it appear that we are “advancing” or “making progress” independent of God. We are still a society which has lost the capacity to distinguish between “good and evil”, “light and darkness”.  

Although God’s love is certainly “compelling”, it is not “restraining”. It vulnerably makes itself available and then awaits our response.

If we fail to respond to his loving- advances, the judgment (determination) of God will be his willingness to allow us to attempt to find and make our way without him.

He will do everything possible to assure us of his good desires and purposes toward us, short of violating our will and our ability to choose our response.

“Just leave us alone!” I cannot be left to myself in this world.

Judgment means that our lives are “consequential”:

that our actions matter to God; that the way we live our lives is of concern to him.

It’s hard for us to hear that God expects something of us without that morphing into some distorted and unhealthy emphasis on good works alone.

● Knowing that our lives are consequential prevents us from adopting a view of faith which allows us to make professions which are totally disconnected from the actual way that we conduct our lives.

James asks (ch.2), “Can that kind of faith save you?” (if you have faith without deeds). Can such a faith really prove itself to be informing and transforming and re-ordering your life? Is it producing the shalom of God?

● Without the often “messy work” of incarnation (our embodying the gospel), there is no viability to our faith professions; nothing to suggest that our faith is transforming us and is therefore worth making available to others.

The judgment of God is often characterized as “absence”.

It’s interesting that the response is not that he will “tear up the vines and destroy them”, but that he will remove his care and protection; that he would simply leave the vineyard to itself. He would stop pruning it and cultivating it and, in the end, it would come to ruin.

It would be God’s presence which was to define and describe them as a people and, if at any point he were to withdraw his presence, they would cease to be a people (community), just as the vineyard would succumb to the conditions without the owner’s patient and persistent intervention.

● We often conceptualize the judgment of God as his aggressive punishment for violators, as if there should be a warning in the opening pages of the Bible reading,

“Violators will be prosecuted”. This is not the view of judgment in this text.

If he is ‘light’, his absence means ‘darkness’. If he is ‘restoration’, his absence means ‘separation’. If he is ‘life’, his absence means ‘death’.

● Creation, left ‘unattended’, will naturally realize the decay and ruin associated with its fallen (marred) state.

● The patient, determined and effectual involvement of the Creator himself is what is required in order to reverse the effects of sin and allow us to experience meaningful and enduring life.

This “giving over to their sinful desires” is what is depicted in the first chapter of Romans. It includes a brief description of the self-destruction that is they natural consequence of the failure to “acknowledge God”.

God’s judgment is not just about ‘giving people what they deserve’; it’s about the refusal of some to receive ‘what none of us deserves’.

There will ultimately be those who refuse to be embraced; refuse to accept grace. Despite all of the warnings, humanity persists in re-writing, re-defining the story.

Read John 3:16-19 from Message

“This is the verdict (judgment): Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light…”

● It is out of this ‘bad news’- this rehearsal of humanity’s rebellion, that we hear the ‘good news’: God himself has acted, has become faithful Israel, faithful humanity, and that out of death, has come new life. This is our story. This is our song.

The really confounding thing about judgment is that God took it upon himself.

Just as it remains beyond comprehension that the Israelites could look upon the snake on the pole and be healed, it still confounds me that we are able to look upon and trust the Christ on the cross for the “shalom” that he desires for all of humanity.

In Jesus, God’s mercy and justice meet.

“Righteousness and peace (the result of justice) kiss each other”, according to the Psalmist (85:10).

● Luke’s parable will go on to offer God’s ultimate response: “incarnation”- God with us, God for us, God instead of us.

● Our dilemma moves us to “look to and trust”, not our own wisdom, not our own capacities for securing a future, but to the Christ, our rescuer, our healer.