Matthew 21:33-46 (NRSV Updated Edition)
“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went away. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them in the same way. Then he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They 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.”
Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes’?
“Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruits. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.
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"Have you ever wondered why the owner of the vineyard sent his son at all? He had two groups of servants abused and even killed. Why risk your son? I would have sent an army! Wouldn’t you? Throw those bums out! Give ’em what’s coming to them! Jesus even gets the Jewish authorities to say that. He asks them what the owner of the vineyard should do, and they give the answer that all of us would give, based on our usual way of handling authority. ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death,’ they say. Right! You don’t pussy-foot around with petty dictators. You throw them out! You give them a taste of their own medicine!
"But notice that Jesus never gives this answer, nor supports it. Rather, he quotes Psalm 118: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes.’ Yes, Lord, it is amazing. You didn’t send an army to crush the infidels; instead, you sent your son to die, and then raised him. You raised him up to new life to offer us the same new life. Help us to understand this kind of authority and power, one which gives life instead of taking it. Help us to live it."
- Paul Nuechterlein, from a sermon delivered at Emmaus Lutheran, Racine, Wisconsin, October 5-6, 1996
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"[T]he heavenly Father in his Easter “judgment” acted differently from the master of the vineyard in the parable. Even the murder of his son did not provoke in him a reaction of vengeful retribution, but he sent the risen one back with the message “Peace be with you!” (Luke 24:36; see also John 20:19, 26) to those disciples who at the critical moment had allowed themselves to be drawn into the camp of the opponents of the kingdom of God. The judge’s verdict at Easter was consequently not only a retrospective confirmation of the message of Jesus, but it also contained a completely new element, namely, forgiveness of those who had rejected the offer of pure forgiveness itself and persecuted the Son. Through the Easter message of peace there came a redoubling of that readiness to forgive expressed in the message of the basileia..."
- Raymund Schwager, Jesus in the Drama of Salvation, pp. 135-136
~
"[T]he risen Christ did not come with vengeance against the evil workers in the vineyard. Instead, the risen Christ came in peace with forgiveness. Those experiencing oppression are often scandalized by the notion of forgiveness, but we see in the unforgiving attitude of the Jewish leaders who are the oppressors that forgiveness is even more scandalizing for them. We often overlook how easy it is to hold unforgiving grudges against those people whom we have wronged in some way. The reason that we blame our victims is because accepting forgiveness from the risen Christ implies acceptance of our own wrong doing. No matter how gentle the Lamb of God is, forgiveness is still an accusation, and accepting forgiveness can only be done in a spirit of penitence. Looked at this way, the gift of forgiveness is not necessarily easy to accept."
- Andrew Marr, from blog post "Tending God’s Vineyard" (https://andrewmarrosb.blog/2017/10/06/tending-gods-vineyard/)
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"[The priests and Pharisees] go along with the vengeful version of [the prophetic writing that the parable is most clearly referencing, The Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard, Isaiah 5:1-7], and with the obvious reading of the stupid tenants [who should have known that the owner would come and destroy them]. But this is the time when there's a pause, and then Jesus says 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’?”
"Because of course, if he is the son and heir, and the God who has sent him, the one who set up Israel, is not this vengeful figure, then something entirely different is going on here. He is coming into their midst, allowing himself to be killed, knowing that it's only by occupying the space of death and enabling us to be moved out of that shame, that violence, that fear, that hatred - it's only by occupying that space that we'd actually be able to grow at all.
"If he's done that, then that's the gift that's the wonderful thing. And he's actually pleading on behalf of the wicked tenants, he's saying, “Yep, okay, they were going to do this, but for anyone who's able to accept this as a way of being forgiven that's how you're going to produce the fruits I'm actually giving you. I, the heir, I'm coming in as the one who you are going to kill so that you can have the vineyard. You will be able to produce its fruits. You won't owe any more tithes to the temple, you will be able to produce its fruits. You will be the temple. I will have been the priest, the altar, the sacrifice, all in one so that you can be the new temple.”
"In other words, he's doing something which the temple authorities seem to be unable to imagine..."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 27 in Ordinary Time Year A' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NoiFj8OUp8)
[Source of quote from Raymund Schwager and links to Paul Nuechterlein's sermon and Andrew Marr's blog post, and for discussion and resources on all of this week's lectionary texts, see: http://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/proper22a/]
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