Every now and then, Today Tonight or A Current Affair trott out the ‘tenants from hell’ story. The story usually goes like this. An unsuspecting landlord owns a perfectly good house, and rents it out to tenants. But a few weeks into tenancy, the rent stops being paid, and then the real estate agent has trouble. And then as the weeks and months continue, the tenant starts making some ‘unauthorised alterations’, such as holes in the walls, market garden in lounge room, and a huge pile of rubbish and broken down cars in the yards. So the landlord starts legal proceedings, but by the time the tenant is evicted, the place is a wreck, barely standing, left in a mess, and the landlord has lost tens of thousands of dollars.
In our parable from Matthew 21:33-46, Jesus presents us with some tenants from hell that show the ones channel 9 and 7 find as quite mild and reasonable.
Jesus is in the temple. If we were to look ahead, it actually occurs in the last few days before his execution, and his authority has been questioned. The chief priests, the Pharisees, and the elders are basically saying, “Who do you think you are?’ You upset the applecart. You overturn tables. You drive away our markets. What’s wrong with our church fete? You condemn us. You turn the people against us. By what authority do you do these things?”
And Jesus doesn’t answer at first: “I am not going to tell you.” But eventually during his discussion with these religious leaders, he tells the parable we have had read for us. Now, Matthew gives us the reason that Jesus tells us the parable, which is always very good. Verses 45 and 46:
When the chief priest and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet. (NIV)
So the religious leaders understand that the parable is spoken against them.
The parable itself is about a landowner who rents out a vineyard. We see that the landowner cares for the vineyard. Verse 33 tells us this. He planted it, put a wall around it, and build a winepress and watchtower for it. He doesn’t rent out rubbish: he rents out a good property that his own hands have improved. And the landowner returns at harvest time to collect the rent, which is his share of the crops. He sends his servants to do this. The landowner is presented as reasonable and generous, even here. But it is the tenants’ response that is astonishing. Verses 35 and 36:
The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. (NIV)
Jesus here describes murder and ill treatment with a high hand. What situations could Jesus be referring to, in this part of the parable? It is probably a reference to the Old Testament prophets. For the parable of the tenants in the vineyard is the story of the Old Testament. The prophets were the people to whom God spoke with a message for Israel. Yet, they were rejected and killed by God’s people Israel. The message was unpopular so the messengers were killed. That is always the way things are in this world.
Notice the kindness—even to a fault—of the landowner to the tenants. He sends more and more servants to collect the rent. And God sent prophets again and again to warn Israel, and to plead with the people. That is the story of the prophets in the Old Testament. As the judgment approached, the prophets’ warnings became more desperate and more urgent. God hates the death of anyone, but rather that we turn to him and live. This explains the extravagance of sending servant after servant.
And notice the tenant’s behaviour: they are unmoved, stubborn, and unrepentant. But the landowner has one more card to play. Verses 37 to 39:
Last of all, he sent his son to them. “They will respect my son,” he said. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, “This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.” So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. (NIV)
We would probably be justified if we called the sending of the Son of the landlord to such tenants as reckless folly. What a great risk, to send your son into a battlefield like that. What was the landowner thinking? How could he have sent a beloved son to such wicked murderers? He should have sent a battalion of troops instead.
It is good to see something reckless in this. There is what we might call a reckless generosity about the landowner’s actions. He has spared nothing to try and re-establish the relationship with these tenants.
But again, we see no change in the tenants. The landowner’s extravagant offer of friendship is not accepted. They say on seeing the son, “This is the heir, let’s kill him and take the inheritance.” They are greedy, covetous, and self-seeking. And so the son is thrown out and killed.
Now, we must remember that the Chief Priests and the Pharisees knew what Jesus was talking about. They knew that Jesus had spoken against them.
And here, in introducing the son of the landlord into the parable, Jesus is speaking about himself. He is that Son. He is the Son of God sent by the kind and extravagant God. When he comes, he does not receive the respect that he deserves from the tenants. Rather, they will strip him, beat him, throw him out of Jerusalem, and nail him to a cross. He is, as verse 42 says, the stone the builders rejected (Ps 18:22-23).
And in Matthew’s Gospel, the same people Jesus was speaking to would condemn him to death, and lead him to a place outside the city walls, where by the hand of Roman soldiers they put him to death. Here is a story with bite, a parable with a prediction. The Son will die.
But this is also a parable about the retribution that God will visit upon the wrongdoers. God is an avenger of wrong who will pay back and punish this wrong. But Jesus would have his opponents condemn themselves with their own mouth. Verses 40 to 41:
“Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crops at harvest time.” (NIV)
Here is a promise of judgment and mercy. There will be judgement on the tenants. Here, Jesus is speaking of the Chief Priests and the Pharisees. Indeed, they are representative of the nation Israel as a whole, those who rejected the prophets and stoned those sent to them. God sees. God knows. There will be punishment.
But there will also be mercy. For there are other tenants who will give God his due, give him the crops at harvest time. Here is a word of hope. It is a word for the Jews, that will be fulfilled on the first Pentecost after Jesus rose from the dead. And it is a word for us non-Jews, for Gentiles. God is inviting penitent Jews and believing Gentiles into relationship with himself, that we might together be tenants. This relationship has obligations on our side, yes, but it involves relationship with a loving and kind landowner, who has shown himself extravagantly generous. And it is the church who fulfills Jesus’ word in verse 43:
Therefore, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. (NIV)
This is a wonderful mercy, that we might be included with God’s Old Testament people, that we have been grafted into the cultivated olive tree, that we too are heirs to all the promises God made in the Old Testament.
But relationship with this God comes with obligations. We must produce its fruit. In other words, we must give the Son the respect that he deserves. For that is the will of the Father, and it involves faith in Jesus and repentance towards God. We must turn from those things that displease God and turn to the generous God who desires not our death. And that which we are called to kill is not the messenger that God might send us, but our own sinful nature, those attitudes and desires which displease God.
And as new tenants who bear fruit, the behaviour of the previous tenants must serve as a stark warning to us. Paul deals with the same topic, not using a story about tenants, but an anaology about an olive tree. Israel is the cultivated olive tree. And gentiles are like a wild olive branch grafted in to that tree. And Paul says to us gentiles:
Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God; sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree! (Romans 11:22-24 NIV)
The wicked tenants were evicted because of their unbelief. We stand by faith in Christ. So we must not depart from his kindness.
Still, we should ask, “Why would you send a son to such wicked tenants?” The story still is a tragedy. And the owner of the vineyard appears to have made a tragic and irreversible mistake.
For example, if the landowner has enough power to bring those wretches to a wretched end, why did he not do this before he sent his Son? Why did he show such reckless disregard for his son as to send him to such murderous tenants?
So by itself, the parable raises more questions than it answers. But the parable is located in Matthew’s Gospel. And the purpose Matthew gives for the death of the Son is this: “This is my blood of the new covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt 26:28 NIV). The Son was thrown out of the vineyard and killed by the tenants for sins. Only his suffering for the forgiveness of sins can make sense of the reckless actions of the landowner in the parable.
Let’s pray.