The parable we heard today is known as “The Parable of the Wicked Tenants.” This moniker is helpful, I guess, but it doesn’t really tell you what the parable is about. You may have noticed that Jesus is telling parables aimed at the chief priests and the Pharisees, but it takes them a while to realize it. It takes them a while to see that they are the wicked tenants, in Jesus’ telling of this parable.
It takes us a while to realize that Jesus is talking to us in his parables, too. It’s easy for us to think that we are better than the chief priests and the Pharisees, or at least that we are certainly not them. And we probably feel pretty sure that we are not wicked. So what does any of this have to do with us?
If you think the crucial question for us in reading this parable is, “Who are the wicked tenants today?” then, chances are good you will dismiss the possibility that you are a wicked tenant, and this parable will have little or nothing to say to you, and you will start making your shopping lists in your head right about now. But, it’s possible that this parable can answer more than one question, if we can be attentive enough to find a question that we think might have more to say to us. I think it’s worth trying,
There is much to distract us. We could get hung up on the issue of slavery, and wonder if that’s the question we should ask about. We could get hung up on the violence and ruthlessness of the wicked tenants, who beat one slave, killed another, and stoned another. Twice. We could get hung up on ownership rights, and the delusional notion of the wicked tenants, that if they killed the landowner’s son, they would somehow be rewarded with his inheritance. Getting hung up on any of these questions, might lead somewhere fruitful, but I am not hung up on any of them at the moment.
Here’s the question I’m hung up on: For whom did the landowner plant his vineyard? Why did he put a fence around it, and dig a winepress in it, and build a watchtower? Why, oh why, did he immediately lease the vineyard to tenants, and go away to another country? And why did he make the vineyard fruitful enough that the tenants would want to fight over the yield from its produce? Why did the landowner plant this vineyard, and who is this vineyard for?
Let’s cut to the chase a little, and recognize the landowner for who he is; he is God. Why did God plant a vineyard, and who is the vineyard for?
It seems clear that the vineyard was never meant for God’s own purposes. The vineyard is not an investment property. What does God need a vineyard for?
The only thing God needs a vineyard for is for the pleasure, the fruitfulness, and the occupancy of his beloved creatures, who no longer live in the gardens of paradise. But God still wants them to have someplace nice, someplace safe, someplace where it is possible to lead a happy and fruitful life that has a significant measure of joy in it. Notice that it’s a vineyard, and not a potato field.
Why did God plant a vineyard and all its accoutrements? He built it for love.
The vineyard was always built for his people, and not for himself. Which is to say that the vineyard was always built for us: for you and for me. If you close your eyes, you can imagine, if you will, that we are living in a vineyard of God’s planting, where God means for us to be safe and happy.
Let’s not fuss too much about where the vineyard is located. Let’s say that the vineyard can be easily gerrymandered to include whomever needs or wants to be included. Let’s say this is the best possible use for gerrymandering, and that it is a far preferable method, when identifying the boundaries of the vineyard of the Lord, than, say, firing rockets at one another.
So if God planted us a vineyard and allows us to enjoy the pleasures and safety of it, as well as much of the fruit of its harvest, is it fair, is it right, is it reasonable for God to expect us to offer something back to him come harvest time?
For the last three weeks in church, we have heard parables that include a vineyard. Last week, a father asked two sons to work in the vineyard. The week before, we heard about the laborers getting paid for their work in the vineyard. Next week, we will hear about a banquet. And I assure you that wine was or will be served at that banquet: wine from the vineyard. I keep thinking how reassuring it is, in this world in which so much is uncertain, I keep thinking how reassuring it is to be told that there really is a vineyard. There really is a place that God intends for us to be well and happy. And there really is a banquet at which we will enjoy the fruits of the vineyard.
I can hear you stop making your shopping list for long enough to think, “What is he talking about? A parable is a story, not a map. There is no vineyard. It’s a figure of speech, a fable at best. There’s nothing real about any of this.” We are so used to gerrymandering our territory; we are so used to firing rockets, that it’s hard for us to discern that Jesus is telling us something that is true.
To say that there is a vineyard, is to say that there is a kingdom of God - or more precisely, that there will be for us, since what already exists for God may not yet exist for us, even though everything is always happening everywhere. Somewhere in everything-always-everywhere there really is a kingdom of God; there really is a vineyard. And the grapes that grow in that vineyard will produce whatever kind of wine you want or need, including non-alcoholic wine, if that’s what works. There really is a vineyard. And it belongs to God, but he has given it to us for all intents and purposes.
And even though everything always happens everywhere (which means that God is never far away), it feels to us as though God has gone away to another country. So many people feel as though God hasn’t been seen in years! God’s been gone so long, that it seems to many people that they are not convinced that he was ever here in the first place, and, second of all, there is no point in pretending that we owe him anything. We can keep it all for ourselves.
But to some of us, it feels as though we have one foot in a vineyard in this world, and the other foot already in the vineyard of the kingdom of God. That’s why we’re here today. Because we can’t shake that feeling. (And we sense that everything is always happening everywhere, which is another way of talking about eternity.) And it feels like somehow we have always known why God planted the vineyard, and who he made it for. We have always known that it was for love; that it was for anyone who wanted to claim God’s love and call themselves God’s child.
And when we realize for sure that there is a vineyard; when we know it was planted for us; when we see that all of it was made for love… are we moved by love to return some measure of that love back to God? Or do we insist that possession is nine-tenths of the law, and we never even dream of giving anything back to the One who gave us everything?
God planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it, and dug a winepress in it, and he built a watchtower. He planted, and he built it for love of us, his people. And because God knows that it’s hard for us to perceive that everything is always happening everywhere, God also knew that it would feel to us as if he’s gone away to another country. This feeling, God knows, opened the door to all kinds of mischief, even wickedness.
But God does not want us to fall pray to mischief and wickedness. God wants us to enjoy the blessings of the vineyard in the presence of his Son. So God put a fence around the vineyard, and dug a winepress, and built a watchtower… to try to account for our safety and our joy.
God did it all for love. And the hope of God’s heart, is that we will return some measure of that love back to him, by loving him with our whole heart, and soul, and mind; and by loving our neighbors as ourselves.
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
8 October 2023
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia
