Matthew 21:33-46

Matthew 21:33-46 The parable of the tenants who kill the landowner’s son

Recall that in the previous passage, Jesus was drawing a contrast between the chief priests and elders, who have failed to respond to the preaching of John and Jesus, and the “tax collectors and prostitutes,” who have come to believe and are therefore entering into the kingdom of God ahead of the chief priests and elders.

Jesus tells a second parable that applies to the chief priests and elders.  It uses the longstanding image of the Jewish people as God’s vineyard.  The image appears especially in Isaiah 5:1-7, a passage the Jewish leaders would have known well.

Read Isaiah 5:1-7.

In the Isaiah passage, in the first verses of chapter 5, what did the vineyard owner do?

How does this represent God’s love for his chosen people Israel?  What has he done for them?

What did the vineyard do in response to the owner’s love (see verse 2 and verse 4)?

In the Jewish mind, everything that happened was caused by God.  They did not make a distinction between what God causes and what God allows.  So they saw the destruction of the vineyard – i.e., Israel in Isaiah’s time – as the direct act of God.  We, who see a difference between what God causes and what God allows, might see this as a case where God allowed the nations around Israel to attack and destroy Israel (verse 5: “take away its hedge”), rather than that God directly visited ruin upon them.

Now return to Matthew 21:33-46.

Who does the landowner represent?

Who do the tenants represent?

Who do the servants of the landowner in verses 34-36 represent?

Who does the owner’s son represent?

In Mark 12:8, the tenants kill the son and throw him out of the vineyard.  In Matthew, the order is reversed, as they throw him out of the vineyard and kill him.  Some scholars see in Matthew’s order a reference to the fact that Jesus was killed outside the walls of the city of Jerusalem (John 19:17, 20; Hebrews 13:12-13).

Who are the “other” tenants in verse 41 who the owner will subsequently bring on as his tenants?

The usual interpretation of this parable is that the owner is God; the vineyard is Israel (or Jerusalem); the original tenants are the leaders of the people – the chief priests and elders; the servants are the Old Testament prophets, whom the nation of Israel often mistreated and sometimes killed (although Matthew adds that one of them was stoned, which could be a reference to Stephen – see Acts 7:54-60); the son is Jesus; and the new tenants are a new Israel (or the true Israel) composed of people who believe in Jesus.  Matthew’s community, a people who received the kingdom, was a collection of Jews and Gentiles.  In having so many connections to the story of salvation history, this parable is more like an allegory than most of Jesus’s parables.

How does this story portray the chief priests and elders, who will soon ask the Roman authorities to put Jesus to death?

What does this story say about the people who are putting their faith in Jesus?

What does this parable tell us about God?

Notice that the landowner, like God, trusts the workers without standing over them micromanaging every move.  He is patient when they rebel.  He cares so much about his vineyard that he sends his son.  Although he is patient, he does bring judgment ultimately.

What does this parable tell us about Jesus?

He is not just a prophet; he is God’s son.  He will be killed.  However, there will be an accounting in the end.

Where are we in this story?  What does the parable tell us about ourselves?

The stone

In Matthew 21:42, Jesus ends the parable by pointing to a quote from Psalm 118:22-23 (“the stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone”).  It might also remind the chief priests and elders of the saying in Isaiah 28:16 where God says that he is laying a cornerstone in Zion (Jerusalem) that is a sure foundation for people’s faith.

Who is this cornerstone?

What happens to the cornerstone?

Jesus, the cornerstone, is rejected by the builders – i.e., the leaders of Jerusalem.

The quote from the Psalms say that God has done this and it is “marvelous” or “wonderful” in our eyes.  How would you explain what is wonderful about Jesus being the cornerstone of our faith and of our relationship with God?

When Jesus quotes this passage from the Psalms, how does it answer the question the leaders asked in Matthew 21:23, when they asked by what authority Jesus is doing what he is doing?

In verse 43, Jesus speaks judgment upon the leaders.  What does he say will happen to them?

The passage about the vineyard in Isaiah has similar language.  You can read Isaiah 5:11-16 to see that.

In verse 43, Jesus says the kingdom will be taken away from them and given to a people who will produce the proper fruit of God’s kingdom.  Who are those people, and what is the “fruit” they produce?

The early Christians saw this statement by Jesus as being fulfilled when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and scattered the Jewish people.  They saw the Church (the Christian people) as the “other tenants,” the people producing fruit.

Verse 44 does not appear in many of the early manuscripts, but it is in Luke 20:18 (Luke’s version of this same parable), so it makes sense here.  Jesus may be drawing on a couple of Old Testament images:

• Isaiah 8:14-15 has an image of God as a rock that both Israel and Judah will stumble over, and they will fall and be broken.

• In Daniel 2:32-35 and 43-45, Daniel interprets a dream that King Nebuchadnezzar had, in which a stone that was not made by human hands crushes a statue that represents the powerful nations of the world from the time of Babylon through the time of the Greeks.

Verse 44 has been interpreted in many different ways: perhaps the first group is those who humble themselves before God and fall on Jesus in repentance, while the second group is those who resist the saving grace of Jesus.

How have you found yourself needing to be “broken” as part of the process of embracing the call of Jesus in your life?

In verses 45-46, we see the reaction of the chief priests and Pharisees.  This is the first time Matthew has mentioned the Pharisees since Jesus arrived in Jerusalem.   The recognize that Jesus’s parable refers to them.  What would they like to do, but don’t do, and why?

The lines have now been clearly drawn.  The political die has been cast.  As Jesus foretold before he came to Jerusalem, he is on a clear path to be executed by the leaders of his society.

God never forces anyone to do evil.  Each person who is opposing Jesus could have chosen a different path.  What is Jesus offering to the leaders, as a way to get off of the tragic path they are on?

In this story, we are among the “other tenants” who have been given a shot at working in God’s vineyard.  What a great privilege that is!  What are you doing with your opportunity?  How are you working in God’s vineyard?

What more could you be doing, to do the work of God?

Take a step back and consider this:

The range of people circling in and around God’s vineyard is vast.  When people encounter Jesus, there are many different ways they might respond:

• Some are put off by the claims he makes, or the demands he makes, and they reject him without ever embracing him.

• Some may be living unruly lives when they encountered Jesus, but they see the truth in his calling, decide to follow him, and find themselves being transformed by the relationship they develop with him.

• Some are raised “in the faith” but do not discover a personal experience of Jesus.  They go through the motions of the faith and then fall away or just keep going through the motions without developing a vital relationship with Jesus.  These members of our community need a new encounter with Jesus to help them connect with him on an adult level and follow him on a personal level.

• Some are raised in the church, fall away, and then subsequently have a new encounter that helps them recommit their lives to following Jesus.

• Some are raised in the faith and develop a personal relationship with Jesus early on that matures into an adult commitment to him without ever falling away.

Jesus wants all of them to be part of his team – the people who are working in his vineyard to produce the fruit of the kingdom.  Every time the sun goes down, it is a chance to reflect on what we have done today.  Every time the sun rises, it is a new day in the vineyard – a new chance to be open to the fruit of God’s Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23) and to “press on,” as the apostle Paul puts it (Phil. 3:14).

Every day, Jesus invites us to take another step. We can ask:

What would Jesus like to help you do today in the work of God’s vineyard?

What can you do to help someone else stay true to their calling as a worker in God’s vineyard?

Let us embrace our calling as tenants in the vineyard of the Lord, in whatever capacity he gives us and in whatever work he calls us to do.