Mark 12:1-12

The Parable of the Tenants

1He then began to speak to them in parables: "A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. 2At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. 5He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed.

6"He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, 'They will respect my son.'

7"But the tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' 8So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.

9"What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10Haven't you read this scripture:

" 'The stone the builders rejected

has become the capstone;

11the Lord has done this,

and it is marvelous in our eyes'?"

12Then they looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away.



BACKGROUND READING:


Isaiah 5


Psalm 118



Dig Deeper

Mark doesn’t record many of Jesus’ parables in his gospel, at least not as many as Luke and Matthew. Most of Jesus’ parables are what could be classified as comedies, that is they work out to some degree in the end. With the parables of the seeds that Mark described in chapter 4, one grouping of seed after another goes to waste, until finally the last batch described takes root and produces fruit. Many of Jesus’ other parables recorded in other gospels also work out in the end. They have to do with something lost being found in the end, a victim being finally helped, or a wayward son coming home.


Up until verse 6, this parable seems like it’s going bad, but will turn out well in the end. Then things go terribly awry. Rather than welcoming and respecting the son, the tenants kill him and throw him out of the vineyard. Jesus’ final words of the story are rather ominous: He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.


Notice that the disciples don’t need to pull Jesus aside and ask him the true meaning of this parable. It would have been pretty obvious, in part, due to the fact that everyone would have been familiar with Isaiah 5. In this poem, Isaiah describes God carefully and lovingly planting Israel like a vineyard, hoping for a crop of grapes, but instead, finds bad grapes throughout the vineyard. Despite all of God’s hopes, the vineyard has gone bad, and the only thing left is judgment. The vineyard will be left as a wasteland.


Jesus takes this metaphor and adds to it with details that the people would have readily understood. God is the man who planted the vineyard who has gone away for a time. From time to time he sends the prophets, his servants, but they had all been treated shamefully and rejected. Now he was at last, sending one who was doing the job of a servant, but was more than just a servant, it was his son.


By this point in Mark, the readers should know exactly what Jesus is saying. Jesus is the beloved son of God. He is the one that was set apart at his baptism and confirmed at the transfiguration as the one and only son of God. What Jesus has already said straight out three times, he now confirms through parable. The story is not going to turn out well for him (not from the human standpoint at least).


The tenants believe that the inheritance will either go to the heir or them, it’s a ‘him or us’ mentality. So they take his life. What they don’t realize is that it is this action of self preservation that will seal their fate. In this parable, Jesus not only hints at his own death, he also hints at the judgment that will befall Israel for their rejection of God’s son. Jesus’ actions in the Temple were meant, like the prophets that preceded him, to be a grave warning to Israel, but Jesus knows that they will not listen to him.


Jesus caps this all off by quoting for the crowd from the very Psalm 118 that the crowds had quoted from when they welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem. In the Psalm, the stone that the builders rejected for the Temple because it wouldn’t fit any other part of the Temple, is the only stone that will fit for the capstone, which is the stone at the summit of a corner or arch.


That’s exactly what Jesus is saying about his own work. His vocation cannot be fit into the pre-existing categories and expectations that they have. They are more worried about their own interests in mind, as they are trying to hold onto their power, their inheritance, so to speak. They want to arrest Jesus then and there, because the point of his story has not escaped them one bit.


There is much in this story for us to learn as Jesus’ followers. He has passed on part of his vocation to us. The kingdom that he announced and brought into the world is ours to spread and advance. That s our vocation. We are often called to speak in ways that those around us won’t understand and won’t like, and it is not ours to shrink back from that vocation.



Devotional Thought

Are you truthfully more motivated by God’s call to your vocation to spread his kingdom or the potential rejection of the world? Do you embrace your calling to share the gospel regardless of the fact that people around you may not like, accept, or understand what you are saying?