Murder in the Vineyard: Year A, Proper 22

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20; Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 19; Psalm 80:7-15; Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46

Well the Elves won’t have it any other way for this Proper 22. The sermon practically writes itself: Choose from the 10 Commandments; the story of the leased vineyard, including “the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone”; or even the portion of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, which lends itself to easy listening: “I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

Any lay-leader worth his or her salt can write the liturgy for this Sunday blindfolded: The choir has to sing the chorus from Handel’s Creation (Psalm 19): “The Heavens are telling the glory of God!” Use the litany responses from Psalm 80 in the Prayer of Confession: “Restore us O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.” Preface the sermon with “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

Actually, I’m serious about the liturgy – except for the closing words of Psalm 80, which have always struck me as the height of egoistic presumption when removed from their context – as they usually are when used routinely. But I digress. The sermon is going to take more work than might appear necessary at first glance.

To begin with, Paul’s words are hardly easy listening if the dogma of 2,000 years can somehow be put aside. Paul is not talking about belief in a story about someone who came back from the dead to scare us into piety. Paul is talking about the price paid daily for participating in the ongoing work begun by Jesus of restoring God’s realm of distributive justice-compassion. Paul’s sense of justice did not come from conventional rules and laws that keep empires in power. His sense of justice (righteousness) – his conviction of what is right – comes from his trust in the life example and teachings of Jesus – whom he dared to call “Lord” in the face of the Roman Emperor, who claimed the same title. Paul hopes he can die for the same reason Jesus did, and somehow participate in the incarnation of God’s realm – as the Christ does. These are ecstatic, mystic words, which cannot – must not – be taken literally. The parable of the leased vineyard provides a clue into what Paul was trying to say.

Matthew’s version of the leased vineyard (the parable of the wicked tenants) quotes the imagery from Isaiah 5 as the introduction, and then closes with Jesus’s implication that he himself is “the stone that the builders rejected.” The vine and the vineyard have been used as a metaphor for the chosen people of God since the beginning. Early Christians would have had no problem using that metaphor to refer to Jesus, Jesus’s new Way, and ultimately to themselves as heirs of the promise. The cornerstone or keystone metaphor is likely a common early Christian reference to Jesus, who did become the foundation for the new way, after being rejected by both imperial Rome and the traditional Jewish members of the synagogues, whether in Jerusalem or the diaspora.

Some Biblical scholars disagree, but these commentaries take the view that Jesus himself did not claim to be the Messiah. That claim was made about him during his lifetime, but the seeming prescience that he would suffer and die for sins was never part of his message. Nor did Jesus’s authentic message include apocalyptic judgment, such as Matthew’s Jesus continues to threaten in this parable as well as others. Matthew’s framework transforms Jesus’s parable into an allegory about himself for Matthew’s Christian community, thereby robbing the story of its power.

The scholars of the Jesus Seminar consider the version of the parable in Thomas 65 to be closer to the authentic historical Jesus because it is not overlaid with Christian interpretation. Here is the version from Thomas 65 (The Five Gospels p. 510):

“A [. . .] person owned a vineyard and rented it to some farmers, so they could work it and he could collect its crop from them. He sent his slave so the farmers would give him the vineyard’s crop. They grabbed him, beat him, and almost killed him, and the slave returned and told his master. His master said, “Perhaps he didn’t know them.” He sent another slave, and the farmers beat that one as well. Then the master sent his son and said, “Perhaps they’ll show my son some respect.” Because the farmers knew that he was the heir to the vineyard, they grabbed him and killed him.”

Stripped down to the story alone, the meaning is no longer so clear. When the story is seen in the context of First Century Roman imperial oppression, the meaning is even less clear. Jesus’s followers, far more familiar with the realities of tenant farming for absentee landlords, and the economic precariousness of everyday life, might well have asked,“What’s wrong with killing the heir to the vineyard and keeping the crop for ourselves?” After all, as reported in Matthew’s version, the people who heard it agreed: “[The owner] will [merely] lease the vineyard out to other farmers who will deliver their produce to him at the proper time.” So why not take what we can? Why not lie in wait for the owner himself to show up and kill him too?

The Jesus Seminar Scholars suggest that this parable as it stands on its own is comparable to the parable of the shrewd manager in Luke 16:1-7 because it deals with the economic realities of 1st Century Palestine. Both parables could certainly be interpreted in terms of past as well as present economic realities in the United States. (Note that the commentary on the shrewd manager from one year ago mentions the then-emerging crisis in the U.S. mortgage market.) However, I suggest it is even more comparable to the parable of the unforgiving slave from three weeks ago: “When the parable of the unforgiving slave is reduced to the bare bones of the story itself, when Matthew’s opinion about God’s avenging judgment is removed, we find that the slave for whom a vast debt was forgiven is held accountable not to his master, but to his own integrity.” Likewise, the scheming vineyard caretakers in today’s parable might be justified in their desire for revenge against the unjust system that keeps them beholden to the land owner, with no recourse should the crop fail or should the owner demand the entire profit – either of which were distinct possibilities. The version of the parable in the Sayings Gospel of Thomas leaves us hanging. But Jesus would not have advocated a violent and unjust solution to an equally violent and unjust situation. Jesus always shows us the way to Covenant, never Empire.

Jesus probably was very familiar with the prophet Isaiah’s Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard. What he would not have been able to do is transform the reference in verse 7 into his own death. Isaiah in Exile laments that the people have rejected the law – “The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the House of Israel . . . he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness [justice] but heard a cry [oppression]!” The Elves should not have stopped the reading there. The Song is not about foretelling the death of Jesus; it is about the failure of the people to honor God’s Covenant: “[A]s the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will become rotten, and their blossom go up like dust: for they have rejected the instruction of the Lord of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.” Isaiah 5:24.

In Jewish tradition the giving of the law is celebrated 50 days after the Passover. Christianity appropriated this festival, overthrowing the original meaning – the giving of the Jewish law (Shavuot) – and replacing it with the establishment of the church of Jesus Christ (Pentecost). The Elves constructed the Christian lectionary so that we arrive at one of the stories of the origin of “the 10 Commandments” three months later. What most Christians have never been taught is that the great law of Moses is far more than the first ten rules. The law codifies God’s insistence on distributive justice-compassion, and the Old Testament is the story of the struggle to keep that law.

Jesus’s followers would have known the whole law and the prophets. The metaphor of the lover’s vineyard – God’s realm, God’s people – would also have been part of their daily mythos, as they suffered under Roman oppression and prayed for deliverance from injustice. Jesus’s story about the leased vineyard may well have reminded them of Isaiah’s Song, and the choice to be made. The recorder of Thomas’ sayings gospel ends many of Jesus’s words with “Anyone here with two ears had better listen!” The Unforgiving Slave learned the hard way that in God’s realm, debt has no power. Likewise, in God’s realm, killing the heir will not restore the vineyard to the beloved.

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