Who’s really in charge? It’s the question at the heart of many a disagreement, many a power struggle.
Today’s Gospel reading continues the conversation between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders, who approached him, demanding answers, after his surprising actions in the Temple. After entering Jerusalem in a procession surrounded by large crowds, Jesus entered the Temple and was enraged to see the corruption and exploitation taking place at the hands of those who had been charged to care for the widow and orphan. He drove out those who were selling and buying, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers. Taking their place, he freely offered healing to the blind and the lame who came to him.
The next time he entered the Temple, the religious leaders were ready. Who did Jesus think he was, destroying their carefully-managed systems? What made him think he could take their place as the mediators of God’s presence and forgiveness? So they asked him – “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”
But Jesus refused to answer. Instead, he asked an impossible question, then followed it up with three parables, the second of which we heard today.
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| Photo by Ales Me on Unsplash |
Jesus sets up the story by introducing the landowner, and giving his hearers the lay of the land – fields of grape vines, a sturdy fence; a winepress and watchtower. This was a vineyard lovingly planted, a vineyard expected to yield a bumper crop. Having other business to attend to, the landowner entrusts the newly-planted vineyard to some tenants, with the expectation that they will steward the land until his return.
We don’t quite know when it happened, but at some point the tenants started to think of the vineyard as their own. Perhaps it started as a sense of pride and connection to the land that helped them fulfill their calling to care for the vineyard – very good! Eventually, though, their gaze turned inward in such a way that they lost sight of the landowner, and of their original calling. Instead of tending the vineyard in anticipation of the landowner’s return, they began tending the vineyard with an eye to their future and their wants. In other words, they forgot who was really in charge.
The story has a rather horrific end. The tenants end up so convinced that the vineyard is rightfully theirs that they respond to the landowner’s slaves with abuse and murder. Even when the landowner sends more slaves, they treat them in the same way. Finally, the landowner sends his son – an extension of himself, and someone who ought to command the same respect and honor as the landowner himself. But the wicked tenants are not swayed even by the landowner’s son. Instead they imagine a scenario where they receive his inheritance and finally cement their takeover of the vineyard, and so they kill him, too.
Jesus knows what happens when power and authority, however tenuous, are threatened. He knows that his ministry, his very presence is a threat to the religious leaders, working as he does across the boundaries they have so carefully tended. His work, and the upside-down kingdom he ushers in, are disruptive and dangerous to the status quo, and the ones with the most to lose will kill him to preserve it.
After so many thousand years of traditions handed down, it’s no wonder that the religious leaders began to see themselves not just as stewards of God’s people, but as the gatekeepers and authorities and the ones in charge of a massive cultural, religious, and economic system. The problem is that they’ve become so focused on the system that they’ve forgotten the main point – it’s not their vineyard. They are not owners, but stewards, charged with tending and watering and pruning and fertilizing God’s beloved crop, God’s beloved people, so that they might produce the fruits of the kingdom: loving God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving their neighbor.
Just as the religious leaders were surprised to find that the story was really an indictment of them, I think we may be surprised to find that it’s also a mirror for us. We, too, have forgotten who’s really in charge. We, too, have slipped from a sense of stewardship into a sense of ownership. We see ourselves as gatekeepers of tradition or ideological purity, sometimes forgetting why we gather in the first place. We often focus more on keeping people out of the vineyard than on tending the fruit within it. We see ourselves as entitled to what we have, whether that’s our customs, our possessions, or even our planet, rather than as stewards of precious gifts that do not belong to us.
I think the good news here is the assurance that we’re not in charge. For as nice as ownership seems, it doesn’t take much for the weight of responsibilities and decisions and demands to come crashing down on top of us. Whether we act like it or not, the vineyard still belongs to God. It is God who has lovingly planted us and God who enables us to produce fruit. Unlike the tenants, who were only concerned with themselves, God is generous and merciful, a gracious provider and tireless caretaker. God’s authority is wise, good, and life-giving, and for this we give thanks.
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