33 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. 35 “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. 38 “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.” 42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? 43 “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.
This Sunday there are two parables about vineyards, a frequently used image for Israel and the chosen people. Jesus clearly has Isaiah’s “Song of the Vineyard” (today’s first reading) in mind when he delivers this story, known as “the parable of the tenants”. Like Isaiah, it contains many allegorical elements, some of which are the same. For example, as in the Old Testament prophecy, the vineyard represents Israel and its owner God. As before, the owner does his best to protect the vineyard, building a wall around it and a watchtower. A further similarity is that the owner is disappointed in the vineyard, but this time his disappointment does not because of the quality of the fruit (which he does not even receive) but the quality of those who rent the land.
Jesus is attacking here the nation’s leadership, especially its religious leaders such as the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The renters refuse to pay what they owe to the owner. First the owner sends servants – who represent the prophets – to collect the rent. Note how the violence of the tenants’ reaction increases each time, going from physically injuring them to killing them. It escalates to the point of stoning the last servant. Stoning was a particularly ignoble and painful form of death, reserved for blasphemers, adulterers, idolators, Sabbath violators, etc. Stoning is also done by a group of people and thus a community act. These stones used by the people against the owner’s representatives also make a poignant and even ironic contrast to “the stone the builders rejected” in verse 42.
Finally the owner sends his son to collect the rent, and they decide to kill him as well. Their rejection and murder of the son stands for the future that Jesus will face. As a result of this, the tenants will be punished, and the vineyard destroyed, which represents the coming destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans and the diaspora. The reading, however, concludes on a note of triumph for the rejected stone will become the cornerstone. Jesus will be rejected by the Jewish leaders, suffer crucifixion and death, but God will vindicate him (through the resurrection) and give him power over everything. In the final verse, Jesus warns the leaders and their followers that, as the vineyard was taken from its old tenants and given to new ones, so will the kingdom of God be taken from them. The Church, which will have an overwhelmingly Gentile membership, will become the new chosen people and inherit the vineyard. Tragically, the new owners have not always done much better than the old ones.
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