The Parable of the Tenants

It’s the 27th Sunday in ordinary time and today’s gospel reading comes from Matt.21: 33-43, it is about the Parable of the Tenants. Today’s parable is something common in ancient Palestine and therefore easily understandable to those listening to the Lord Jesus Christ.

“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, 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’ [a]? 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.”

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It is good to note that this parable has other titles, one is the Parable of the Wicked Tenants and the other is the Parable of the Vineyard. Note also that this is one parable that appears not just in the gospel of Matthew, but also in the gospel of Mark (Mark 12:1-12) and in Luke (Luke 20:9-19), which means that this parable is of great importance for our evangelists.

Today’s gospel reading is also a continuation of last Sunday’s Gospel in Matt.21: 28-32 called the Parable of the Two Sons. That gospel was a simple one where two sons were asked by their father to go and work in the vineyard, the first one said he would, but didn’t go, while the other son refused the father, but eventually he went and worked in the vineyard. We all know which of the two sons did the will of their father.

To simplify this parable, let’s first identify the characters or the players involved in this story. This parable starts with the landowner, who is God himself. The vineyard according to Biblical scholars is Israel, the tenants are the leaders of the Jewish religion and the landowner’s servants were God’s prophets and the son is our Lord Jesus Christ.

If you noticed the landowner prepares his vineyard and when it is done, he had it rented to the tenants. The landowner prepares his vineyard for his first born people, the Israelites who would be taken care of by their religious leaders represented by the tenants.

When harvest time came, the landowner sent his servants to collect the fruit of the vineyard. But instead of paying the servants, the tenants seized them; they beat one, stoned the other and killed the other one. So the landowner sent his son in the hope that they would respect him, but instead they threw him out and killed him.

Basically this parable is a sort of narrative of what the religious leaders of the Jews had done for God who gave them Israel to lead their flock to God. But they failed God. They failed to listen to the prophets sent by God and when God sent his only begotten son our Lord Jesus Christ, they tortured and killed him. While he was addressing the chief priests and Jews, this parable is also a sort of prophesy of the coming passion and death of our lord in the hands of the Jews.

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