Daily Devotion – September 30, 2020 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison
Matthew 21:33-46
21:33 “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country.
21:34 When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce.
21:35 But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.
21:36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way.
21:37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’
21:38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’
21:39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
21:40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
21:41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give 21:42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’?
21:43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.
21:44 The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”
21:45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them.
21:46 They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.
The landowner, vineyard owner, or business owner is a frequent character in Jesus’s parables. Why?
It depends a little on whom Jesus is trying to teach, probably. If Jesus wants the learners to think individually about their own lives, about their relationships in family or among their friends, the stories have misfortunes heaped on a person, through his fault or mere circumstances, and then, regardless, the person is helped or is treated with generosity. But if Jesus wants his learners to think of themselves as community, about how they act together (remember, most of the times in the New Testament when the word you is used, it is the plural form of the word, not the singular, for the whole “group you”), if Jesus wants his learners to consider how they are behaving as a group, as a community, the landowner parables help him teach that.
Here we have a vineyard owner who leases a vineyard to tenants, who are to live there, work there, and pay their rent by giving the owner his share of the produce. It is a common arrangement, and easy to agree upon before the growing season (much like agreeing for a day’s wage would have been).
These tenants not only did not pay their rent by giving the landlord the produce, but instead hurt and/or killed the slaves/messengers and even the landlord’s son.
How might this parable apply to our community, our group?
Here’s one possibility: St John, like most congregations, feels like a church its members belong to, and like a church that belongs to them. Well, we may belong to St John, but it does not belong to us. It is God’s church, and we are its tenants, not its owners. Another metaphor might be that St. John is God’s restaurant for weary travelers, and we are the cooks and the wait staff. We might eat there too, but it is there, on that street corner, for the folks passing through on their life journeys.
Now when someone reminds you of the fact that St John is God’s and we are tenants, does that reminder make the people of St John want to hurt or kill them?
What has God gifted St John to be and do for the strangers, neighbors, and persons on life’s journey? What is St John’s crop of produce supposed to be? Are we growing grapes? Or music? Or care for the elderly? What has St John been uniquely gifted for and called to grow? And to whom is that product or service owed?
God is the vineyard owner. We are called to be God’s servants, St John’s tenants, equipped and sent out from St John. To whom? Where? What is our missional calling from God and how are we showing the world that we know who owns us?
Gracious God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for calling us to be your vineyard’s tenants and workers. Make clear our calling and help us to remember we are working for you. Amen.
