The Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 25, 2007 Year C
Luke 20: 9-19

In today’s gospel we find, as we have several times over the last few weeks, one of the parables of Jesus. Parables are in their broadest sense metaphor, literary devices that are meant to clarify, to explicate meaning. The parables of Jesus, however, are just as likely to have us scratching our heads in puzzlement as they are to be illuminating.

In our efforts to make sense of the parables of Jesus we often jump to an allegorical interpretation. Because we expect the stories to be theological, we try to decide which character in the story represents God or Jesus, and which events or expectations the story is trying to illustrate. Because we already know the rest of the story, it is easy for us to hear Jesus’ parables as prophetic warnings of what is to come.

It’s especially tempting to do that with today’s parable, given its placement in our lectionary. We read this parable in the shadow of Holy Week, and in that shadow we see God as the absentee landowner who sends his messengers to the people of Israel. We see the tenant farmers as the Temple authorities, the scribes and Pharisees who consistently challenge Jesus and who seem threatened by his teaching. We hear this parable as a warning that Israel will be rejected and another people chosen. We hear this as a prophetic statement of what is to come.

BUT…
But must this parable be interpreted this way? Could it be that this was not what Jesus was talking about? A closer analysis, in fact, might lead us to question that quick and somewhat obvious interpretation. Let’s look at our assumptions.

First, is the landowner God? The landowner is not particularly wise, is he, to continue to send his slaves and his son into such a hostile situation? What did he expect? And does an absentee landlord interested only in reaping the profits of those who toil for him really represent a loving and caring God who has promised to be with the people always?

Second, do the tenants represent the Temple authorities? These tenants are not particularly wise either, but rather act in a quite duplicitous way. While the Temple authorities may have been frustrating for the people at times, may in fact have been more caught up in worldly affairs than in the affairs of God, they were nonetheless some of the most talented and dedicated men in the community.

And does the son represent Jesus? This son who was sent says nothing on his own behalf nor on the behalf of his father. Quite unlike Jesus, he displays no power or authority but is simply slaughtered.

And finally, what about the claim that this parable is speaking of the rejection of the people of Israel or even of the Temple authorities? Especially in the context of Luke’s gospel this does not fit what we know. Luke’s gospel is really one piece of a two-part work. In the second piece, the Acts of the Apostles, we hear that there are Pharisees who are still an important part of the apostolic community; indeed Paul refers to himself as a Pharisee—not a former Pharisee, but a Pharisee. The message of Luke and Acts is not that Israel is rejected but rather that the Kingdom of God is extended to the Gentiles through Israel.

So on many levels, our allegorical interpretation of this parable may not work. Moreover, when we rush to this interpretation, we may risk missing what Jesus was trying to say.

As an alternative to a strictly allegorical interpretation we might try to understand this parable in its social and historical context. In the 1st century Mediterranean world in which Jesus lived, there were many absentee landowners. Once their vineyards were developed they leased them to experienced tenant farmers, many of whom may have once been small farmers on their own land, land now lost because of poverty. When it came time for the harvest, the landowners would send their slaves to collect the landowner’s share for profit, likely taking the best to be sold for the owner. In this somewhat exploitive system we see frustrated tenant farmers reacting perhaps unwisely with violence not once but several times. Why did they react this way? Perhaps the landowner demanded more than his fair share. Perhaps the harvest had been insufficient to meet the landowner’s demands. But for whatever reason, when the landowner’s son comes, they likely interpret this to mean that the landowner himself has died, and they act to reclaim the land for themselves by killing the son.

This kind of conflict was very real in Jesus’ world. The inability of the poor to pay their debts, the exploitation of the poor by the rich were the burning social conflicts of the times, and they are reflected in Jesus’ teaching over and over again. To Jesus’ audience, this parable would speak to their current reality far more than it would serve as a foreshadowing of the crucifixion.

If we place this story, a story that reflects the reality of the day, in its proper context in the gospel, we may be able to get at what Jesus is trying to convey. Just prior to telling this parable, Jesus has been questioned by the Pharisees about his authority. The Temple leaders feel their own authority being challenged by Jesus, but it is more than their authority as religious leaders that is threatened. It is the complex power structure that the Temple and its leaders represent and embody that is really being threatened, a power structure that has come to have more in common with worldly power than the power of God and God’s covenant with the people of Israel.

In the parable, no one has any real and abiding authority. The landowner who seems on the surface to be in charge lacks the ability to extract his share of the harvest. The tenant farmers who act to seize authority end up losing it anyway. The son who is sent to represent the landowner is killed. So everyone loses. What does this all mean? The key comes in what Jesus says next.

'The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone'?

Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls."

What is the stone that the builders have rejected? It is the cornerstone that is God’s authority. In the parable, every character acts as if authority is his own, and every character loses. Anyone who attempts to hang onto worldly authority in God’s kingdom will lose. That is the message that Jesus preaches over and over and that is the message of this parable. Jesus preaches with authority, acts with authority because he is ushering in the kingdom of God anew. Jesus challenges us to reject worldly power structures, worldly authority in favor of a new way. He calls us to turn the other cheek, to reach out to the poor and disenfranchised, to deny worldly power in favor of the power that flows from God’s deep and abiding love of God’s people—all of God’s people.

Our context, our reality is different in many ways from the reality of the 1st century world. But this parable calls us nonetheless to examine our own lives, our own co-option of power and authority in the world. Are we like the landowner, depending on the exploitation of others to support our easy lifestyles? Are we like the tenant farmers, seizing authority any way we can, using violence and conflict to get what we need, regardless of the consequences for others? Are we so hooked into the power structures of the world that we think we are really in control? Are we so blinded by worldly power and authority that we neglect to see the kingdom of God around us and neglect to live into that kingdom as Jesus calls us to? These are the questions this parable calls us to ponder as move through the last week of Lent.

AMEN