Tables Turned Again!

Here are some thoughts on Sunday's gospel reading that were sent to the people of St. Timothy Lutheran Church. Do you have any thoughts?

Gospel: Matthew 21:33-46

[Jesus said to the people:] 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. ³⁴When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. ³⁵But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. ³⁶Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. ³⁷Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ³⁸But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ ³⁹So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. ⁴⁰Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” ⁴¹They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”
  ⁴²Jesus 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’?
⁴³Therefore 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. ⁴⁴The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”
  ⁴⁵When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. ⁴⁶They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

 

This parable is the second of three in which Jesus responds to those who question Jesus’ authority to do the things he had been doing on his way to and once in the temple: the triumphal entry into the city (which we celebrate with Palm Sunday), overturning the money changers’ tables in the temple, teaching, and healing in the temple. Last week Jesus turned the tables on his questioners and he does the same in this parable.

 

Matthew presents Jesus as telling the parable and asking a question (v. 41). To understand Jesus’ point, it helps to view the parable as a trial scene. Jesus presents the evidence against the tenants (vv. 33-40). The religious leaders serve as the jury and pronounce the tenants as guilty (v. 40). The questioners use stern language because as the religious, political, and economic elite, they identify with the landowner in the story. Jesus then hands down the sentence but in doing so turns the tables on the jury (21:42-44). Jesus identifies with the tenants instead of the landowner, and thus places the religious leaders in the position of having convicted themselves (O. Wesley Allen, Jr., Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries: Matthew).

 

Leave it to Jesus. He continually identified with the disenfranchised and marginalized, which would have been the case with tenant-farmers. In this parable, with whom do we identify? Sometimes we have a pretty high opinion of ourselves.

 

These events take place shortly before Jesus makes his way to the cross, identifying so closely with the marginalized, the abused. To take up our crosses and follow Jesus means we too are to ally ourselves with those in need.

 

Let us pray. Lord Jesus, help us to have a heart for the marginalized even as you do. Amen.

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