Word to the Wise
Friday, March 10, 2023 - 2nd Week of Lent - Fri
[Gen 37:3-4, 12-13a, 17b-28a and Matt 21:33-43, 45-46]Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people: "Hear another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower.......[Matthew]
The parable of the vineyard is spoken to the chief priests and elders of the people. These were the real leaders of Judaism. But it also included the Pharisees, whose leadership was informal, even if powerful. The parable echoes Isaiah 5:1-7: "My friend had a vineyard on a fertile hillside; He spaded it, cleared it of stones, and planted the choicest vines; within it he built a watchtower, and hewed out a wine press. Then he waited for the crop of grapes, but it yielded rotten grapes. In the case of the parable, the problem is not with the vines but with the tenants who twice reject the servants sent to obtain the owner's portion, and then they reject and kill the son of the owner.
Although Jesus is identified as the son of the owner (and the rejected cornerstone), the parable is directed at the blindness and failure of the chief priests and the elders, who at least can recognize that Jesus is "calling them out" for their failure to recognize him.
Anyone who exercises leadership in the community of faith should recognize that God has entrusted him or her with a stewardship. He or she does not own the vineyard. When the stewards get entrenched in power and resist prophetic voices that point to a lack of results beyond those enriching the stewards, the resistance of those stewards can get lethal, as it did in Jesus' case. The text tells us: When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was speaking about them. And although they were attempting to arrest him, they feared the crowds, for they regarded him as a prophet.
In many different ways we are all - from pewperson to pope - entrusted with the Lord's vineyard. What will we be able to say when the Lord asks, "Where are my grapes?" AMEN