A Disturbing Story

 

A Disturbing Story (Mark 12:1-12)

“This is the heir! Let’s kill him and have it all for ourselves!” (Mark 12:7)

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Ever since Jesus stormed through the Temple in a rage, the tension has been rising. The Jewish officials – the chief priests, the teachers of the Law, and the elders – have already accosted Jesus, demanding that he explain himself. “Who gave you the authority to do these things?,” they asked. Instead of answering them, Jesus turned the question back on them.

Then Jesus told a story. It was a story about a man who owned a vineyard. The owner of the vineyard had worked hard to establish it so it would bear fruit – he had worked the soil, planted the vines, put a fence around it, dug a winepress, and built a watchtower. It was a glorious thing! Then the owner moved away, and he left the vineyard in the hands of some tenants. 

When the time came for the grape harvest, the owner sent a servant to collect his share of the crop from the tenants. The tenants, though, beat up the servant and sent him back empty handed. The owner sent several other servants, and they were all equally abused by the tenants – some of the servants were even killed by the tenants. Finally, the owner said to himself, “I will send my son. Surely they will respect him.” But the tenants, when they saw the son, said to themselves, “This is the heir! Let’s kill him and have it all for ourselves!” And that’s what they did.

Well, after Jesus told the story, he directed his gaze at the Jewish officials. “What will the owner of the vineyard do? Right. He will kill those tenants and put the vineyard in the hands of some other people.” Then Jesus said something to drive his point home: Don’t you remember the saying from Scripture: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone! This is God’s doing, and it is amazing to behold.”

The Jewish officials, of course, were furious, because the story was a thinly veiled accusation toward them. They weren’t going to take this lightly, but they couldn’t do anything to Jesus then and there because of the crowd of people that had gathered to listen to Jesus adoringly.

When Jesus told the story about the vineyard owner, my mind went back to the words of the prophet Isaiah, who also spoke about a vineyard. (Why is it that everything Jesus says and does somehow takes me back to our scriptures? Maybe it’s because Jesus is the living manifestation of God’s Word.) The vineyard had been meticulously prepared by the owner, but in the end it only produced sour grapes. When Isaiah shared the interpretation of his account of the vineyard, the word of the Lord was loud and clear: the vineyard was the people of Israel, who had failed in their responsibility to live faithfully as the people of God. God pronounced doom on the people and turned Israel over to a foreign nation.

My walk with Jesus is beginning to take on a very serious mood. I am sobered by the realization of the fickleness of God’s people. One day we’re basking in God’s glory and favor, only to turn away from God the next day. How quickly our hearts change from devotion to God to devotion to ourselves and our own glory. 

Jesus couldn’t have been more clear in his interpretation of the story he told. I know he was speaking to the Jewish officials, but I don’t think he was only speaking to them. While his words were a direct condemnation of the officials, for me they serve as a warning: to reject him is to reject that on which the whole kingdom of God is built.

There was something else about the story that Jesus told that have darkened my spirit. If the tenants of the story who rebel against the owner and kill the son are the Jewish officials (and that’s pretty clear to everyone who heard the story), then isn’t it also reasonable to assume that the son in the story is Jesus? 

Everybody is fixating on the tenants. But I can’t stop thinking about the son. Is the story as much about Jesus as it is those who reject him? Is Jesus going to be killed by the Pharisees, the teachers of the Law, and the chief priests? 

O my Lord Jesus, my heart is troubled by the degree to which many in the world despise you. How can anyone be so set against you, especially people who know they have been chosen by God to fulfill God’s purposes for the world? And yet, clearly, it is so. My heart is deeply troubled, O Lord. What hope is there for a world that despises you?