Mark 12: 1-17
March 15, 2020

Today’s reading from Mark is a violent story and one that challenges listeners to see themselves within the episode in the vineyard.

Just before today’s passage, the Pharisees and other religious leaders find themselves in a debate with Jesus.

He has cleansed the Temple, he has cursed the fig tree because it fails to bear fruit and now Jesus is locked in debate over who has the authority. It’s clear that the Pharisees, the Scribes and the elders are trying to trap Jesus in a misstep so that they can get rid of him.

So, they question who has given him the authority to teach and to challenge them. The religious leaders believe they carry God’s authority with them and this upstart from Nazareth will be shown his comeuppance.

Jesus … the teacher … uses a rabbi’s approach and answers their question with one of his own… was John the Baptist’s authority divine or human?

In the course of their deliberations over an answer, it slowly dawns on the religious leaders that perhaps they really don’t possess the authority that they believe they have operated under. When they hem and haw and finally admit that they can’t answer, Jesus no longer needs to offer an answer.

Today’s parable is given in response to that question … “who has given you authority.”

According to the parable, the landowner has prepared the land, planted the vines, built a fence and a watchtower to protect the field and its crops. The landowner has dug a hole and built the press that will squeeze the grapes.

Then, the landowner leased the land to some tenants with the understanding that they would hand over some of the harvest as rent for use of the land. Well, when it came time to pay the rent, the tenants beat the slave sent to collect and sent him back to the landowner. A second slave was sent and the result was the same.

A third attempt resulted in the death of the slave.

Still, the landlord kept sending slaves to collect what was due … some were beaten … some where killed. Finally, the landlord sends his son … his Beloved Son … to collect the rent.

Perhaps, the landlord believed that someone with familial ties to the land would fare better with the tenants. He was wrong.

The tenants … believing that if they get rid of the son, that they will inherit the land … kill the son and throw his body off the property … leaving him unburied … the ultimate insult for a person.

Jesus asks the religious leaders to consider the landowner’s next step. But before they can arrive at an answer, Jesus tells them what it is.

“He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.”

Centuries have passed since an audience first heard Mark’s story.  And a story about trouble in the vineyard isn’t a new one for anyone who knew their Scriptures. The Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard was one of stories told by Isaiah and it would be one that any scripturally savvy first century person would know well.

In that case, the land only produced wild grapes for the beloved. So, God vowed to destroy the unfruitful vineyard, which Isaiah said, was the land of Israel. In Isaiah, the focus is on bearing good fruit, in Mark’s passage, God eyes a different target.

The land isn’t the problem … it’s the tenants … the people responsible for its care are the issue. Since they seem incapable of changing … of living up to their responsibilities, they have to go.

Their unfaithfulness … their unwillingness to meet their end of the covenant … is the focus of this parable in Mark.

Mark was sharing his gospel some forty years after Jesus’ death on the cross.

The Temple in Jerusalem had been levelled by the Romans, who had gotten a little tired of the rebellion by the Jewish population. To Mark, the end times were near and people had better get right with God. They had been become better tenants.

By the time Jesus reached the end of the parable, the Pharisees, the Scribes and the church elders realize that Jesus is speaking about them when he speaks about the bad tenants.

They are the ones who have not been faithful to the covenant … they have been the ones who have beaten or killed God’s messengers and will be the ones tossing the beloved outside the fence.

The tenants believe that they control the vineyard and will rightfully inherit it … just as the religious leaders believe they speak for God and control God’s place in the life of the world. Well, they were wrong.

Maybe we can consider the story from the landlord’s perspective.

God’s patience with the tenants seems almost endless …think of all the slaves he sent in the hopes that the tenants would live up to and into their commitments. It’s only when they kill the beloved son, that the patience will come to an end and the tenants will be replaced.

Scholar Timothy Geddert once wrote that Jesus’ ministry was also training new tenants … the disciples … to take over the vineyard.

The disciples … and by extension, each of us … are the new tenants. The leadership isn’t centralized as it was when Jesus was debating the Pharisees, scribes and elders … the ranks of the tenants grew as each one shared and loved.

Through our faith, we are the inheritors.

And through our faith, we are called to heal, comfort, teach and bear witness to God’s place in our lives and life of the world. By living into our call, by sharing the love we receive, we are the righteous tenants who show that God is ever-present.

During the season of Lent, as we follow Jesus’ journey to the cross, we are called to reflect upon our own journey … our own actions and inactions in regards to others … to examine and prepare our hearts for what is to come … to prepare it for the new life that we receive through grace … a gift given through Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Scholar Alan Culpepper says this parable calls listeners into “soul-searching reflection.”

He writes that “The parable is a mirror in which each reader can see his or her own personal rejection of God’s grace. How often, by word or by circumstance, has God called for us to respond to his claim on our lives and we have responded instead with calculations spawned by our own desires or ambitions?”

It is time when we can reflect upon what kind of tenants we’ve been.

Have we been controlling of God’s blessings … allowing our personal desires and wants to dictate how we serve … whom we serve? Whether we share love or withhold it?

Have we truly invited and welcomed those searching for a place to belong, or have we kept them at arm’s length because they are unfamiliar?

These are questions that I hope we consider as we continue our journey in the days ahead.

AMEN