Twenty-seventh Sunday In Ordinary Time
MATTHEW 21:33-43 (Isaiah 5:1-7; Philippians 4:6-9)
Parables seem to have been Jesus’ favorite teaching method. Matthew’s frequent use of the parables of Jesus indicates that he too preferred parables for instruction. He begins simply, “Hear another parable.” A man planted a vineyard, planted a hedge around it, built a tower. The reason for the hedge and tower was to keep out wild animals, both human and beastly. There were bears in Palestine in the first century, even into the early twentieth. Bears love grapes. There were also hungry people, even thieves, who waited until the grapes were ripe, then slipped in to help themselves. The Torah (the Law of Moses) spoke to this situation, “When you go into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, but you shall not put any in your container.” The tower in a vineyard was usually a small stone hut, temporary living quarters, since the vineyard at harvest time would have to be guarded night and day against marauders, human and otherwise.
The owner of the vineyard leased it to tenants. Much of the land of Palestine in the first century was owned by absentee landlords, especially wealthy Romans. At harvest time the owner sends his agents to collect his share of produce. The tenants were an unusual lot, but it makes for a good story. They beat one agent, killed another, stoned a third one. The owner should have called the gendarmes. Instead he sent more agents. They got the same treatment as the earlier ones. Finally the owner thought, if one can dignify such a mental process as a thought, “They will respect my son.” Bad idea! When they saw the son approaching, they said, “This is the heir. Come on! Let’s kill him and keep his inheritance.” They seized the son, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
A normal reader or hearer of the parable wonders how the tenants got by with their crimes. If the parable reflects real life in the time of Jesus, and later in the time of Matthew, tenant farmers rarely if ever saw their absentee landlords, since travel was not easy. Also, tenant farmers, especially in Galilee where most of Jesus’ ministry takes place, lived resentfully under Roman occupation. They knew well crimes against absentee landlords would draw sympathy from locals, and a cover up of crimes such as the parable envisions would have been relatively easy. The owner was far away and neighbors would have been sympathetic. A great biblical scholar of the twentieth century suggests that under some circumstances an inheritance may be regarded as ownerless property which can be taken over by first come first served. Parables however do not have to reflect real life in all details. Rather they are constructed to make the point the teller wants to make.
Matthew found the parable of the wicked tenants in the Gospel of Mark. He followed Mark’s version quite closely, but made some changes, when he thought changes were needed. For example, Mark wrote that they killed the son, then threw his body out of the vineyard. Not so, says Matthew, having in mind his own interpretation of the parable. Both Matthew and Mark use the parable as an allegory – in which the various characters are symbols of people in real time and real life. For both authors the son of the parable is Jesus. Matthew obviously thinks Mark’s sequence of events, that the tenants killed the son, then threw out the body, is mistaken. Since Jesus was crucified outside the city of Jerusalem, in Matthew’s version they first cast him out of the vineyard, then killed him.
When in the New Testament there is mention of a vineyard, those who knew their Scriptures thought of Isaiah 5:1-7, this Sunday’s first reading. Isaiah sings (raps) a parable about a vineyard. “My beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. He planted the best vines, planted a hedge around it, and built a watchtower in the middle of it. At harvest time he came looking for grapes, but the choice vines produced only wild grapes.” Isaiah proceeds to interpret the parable. “The vineyard of the Lord…is the house of Israel and the men of Judah.” They are his pleasant planting. The harvest he sought was justice and righteousness, but he found bloodshed and weeping.
Matthew knows this parable of Isaiah. He uses it for his interpretation of his own parable. The vineyard for Matthew is Jerusalem. The Lord himself is the absentee owner of the vineyard. The agents sent to collect his share of the produce are prophets and Christian missionaries. The treatment of the owner’s agents reflects how the “house of Israel and the men of Judah” treated the prophets in real life. They killed some, beat and stoned others, both in the Old Testament and in the New. Matthew knows of the stoning to death of Stephen, the stoning and persecution inflicted on Paul, the killing of James Zebedee in Jerusalem in the year 42, the martyrdom of Peter and Paul in Rome in the year 64. Above all, he knows how Jesus died. When Matthew notes how the owner will come and put those criminals to death, it is his interpretation of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Roman army in 70 A.D. He uses the parable to justify the Christian mission to the Gentiles – the new tenants “who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” Matthew switches metaphors – from vineyard to building. The “son” cast out of the vineyard and killed becomes the cornerstone of a new building, the Church.
