Reflection by The Ven. Dr. Deborah Broome

The point is the fruit 

[Jesus said] “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went away. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them in the same way. Then he 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.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 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.”

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’?

“Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruits. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.                                                 Matthew 21:33-46

This is a story about fruit.  That’s the whole point about vineyards, isn’t it: it’s about the fruit. 

When Jesus starts telling the story I suspect there’d be some sympathy for the owner of the vineyard, who’s trying to get his tenants to give him the produce due to him.  Especially when the tenants become increasingly violent, attacking and killing his servants, and end up killing his son.  Indeed the tenants seriously over-react, and reveal their short term thinking.  Did they really expect that if there was no longer an heir they’d end up owning the vineyard themselves?  It’s possible, though, that the ordinary folk – who are more likely to have suffered under unpleasant landlords than from unreliable tenants – might at some point start to sympathise with the tenants.  We tend to react to things out of our own experiences, don’t we. 

The religious authorities however would have recognised something else in this story and realised that Jesus was making a larger point about them.  Because part of the background to this is that the vineyard was a traditional image for Israel, which explains a lot about how the chief priests and elders respond to Jesus.  Then he sneaks in a line from Psalm 118 about the stone the builders rejected becoming the cornerstone, and suddenly the parable turns into a story about Jesus, and how people reacted to him.

We can’t see this story though as setting Jews against Gentiles, especially since when Matthew’s Gospel was written the church included members of both groups.  Jesus’ target is the religious leaders, not Israel as such; he’s talking to those whose role it was to lead and care for the people.  They were the tenants of the vineyard, and their mistake is to act as though they can receive the vineyard and ignore the relationship with the owner.  They reject the servants and finally the son because they refuse the claim the owner has over their lives.  They want the gift without the giver.

The real task of the tenants, of those who work in the vineyard, is to grow and harvest the fruit – and to do it in a way that prioritises their relationship with the owner.  Where are we in all this?  What sort of tenants of the vineyard are we being?  Do we get tempted the same way – looking for community without accountability, blessing without relationship, spirituality without obedience.  Wanting the gift without the giver.  How are we doing at producing the fruits of the kingdom of God?

Image credit: David Köhler, Unsplash