If you worshiped this past Sunday, you may have heard (or preached on) the parable of the wicked tenants. It’s a tough story to digest. A landowner plants a vineyard and leases it to tenants. When the landowner’s slaves come to collect the harvest, the tenants kill them. When the landowner sends his son, the tenants kill him as well. If they kill the son, they think, they’ll receive the son’s inheritance.
“But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’”
—Matthew 21: 38
Removing this story from any attempt to interpret it in a supersessionist kind of way, and taking the story at face value, I have always wondered why the tenants thought that killing the landowner’s son would enable them to receive his inheritance. That detail boggles my mind. Everyone listening to this story tends to agree that the landowner will lease the vineyard to other tenants (duh!).
But it’s not their ineptness that creates the tension in the story as much as it is what I imagine is the anxiety they experience from not feeling like they have enough. They need that inheritance and are willing to do anything to get it.
If I weren’t quite so aware of the historical context of the Gospel of Matthew, I might start to wonder if the tenants were living in a time of inflation—today, even. Prices seem to be getting higher and higher. I paid $5 (albeit at the airport) for a plain cup of coffee the other day at Starbucks. That same coffee used to cost $2.11. I know I sound like I’m old—“I remember when….”—but I also know that individuals, families, and congregations are experiencing the anxiety that comes with financial insecurity. We need (fill in the blank).
But there are two things I think the tenants (and, therefore, we) forget:
- Everything belongs to the landowner, and
- The purpose of the vineyard is to produce.
If everything belongs to the landowner (God), then we cannot really claim anything for ourselves. If the vineyard’s purpose is to produce and all the workers are doing their part, then there will be enough for everyone anyway.
No, this does not make my cup of coffee any cheaper, but it does remind me—as I hope it reminds you, too—that, because everything belongs to God and because we work together in the vineyard, there is enough to go around.
What if we really do have everything we need? Could we move from anxiety to gratitude to generosity? I think so.
Together in Christ,
