Sermon Talkback—Oct. 5, 2008
Matthews 21:33-46
I. Tending Gardens
1. Do you now and have you in the past had a vegetable garden and what kind of produce did you harvest?
2. Do you think that “tending gardens” whether figuratively or literally would help us to understand our role to work together for the end of violence?
II. Another Interpretation
The Parable of the Wicked Tenants found in Matthew 21:33-46 has historically been interpreted allegorically meaning one interprets a story as a series of symbols, each corresponding to another set of referents outside of the world of the story. In this parable, it typically goes something like this: The “landowner” is understood as God, who has entrusted his “vineyard” understood as Israel to a group of “tenants” understood to be the Jews or the Jewish leaders. The “slaves” sent by God were the prophets, who were continually rejected and murdered. Finally, God sent his “son,” interpreted as Jesus, as the last opportunity for compliance with the contract.
The tenants, or the Jews, killed him, too, and thus incurred the landowner’s, or God’s, wrath. Then the vineyard, or Israel, would be given over to “other tenants,” who are often interpreted as Christians or the church. These new tenants will be more honest in providing the fruits of the harvest.
As you can see, there are both exegetical and ethical problems in interpreting this parable this way. For example, exegetically the “son” in Matthew is not necessarily referring to Jesus. See the story of the “two sons” immediately before this text. Ethically, this allegorical interpretation has generated and under girded central anti-Jewish opinions in Christian history. We do not believe in teaching contempt.
Recent scholars have argued that this parable is not really about God abandoning the Jewish people or Judaism for Christian people or Christianity. The parable is rather a Jewish prophetic attack on the behavior of certain Jewish leaders. Matthew clearly contextualizes this parable within Jesus’ string of conflicts with Jewish authorities: the “chief priests,” “scribes” and “Pharisees,” in the surrounding chapters (21:1-24:2).
III. Identifying with the Tenants
How might the parable function if the “son” is not automatically assumed to represent Jesus, or anyone else for that matter? What happens when we find ourselves convicted like the old tenants, having originally agreed to a contract and then were overcome with greed for more? Does the current sub-prime mortgage debacle and economic crisis we have reflect our temptation to greed?