The Parable of the Tenants addresses their rejection of him and alludes very much to the image of Israel as the vineyard found in the Old Testament.
At one level the parable isn’t difficult to decipher. The owner of the vineyard is God; the tenant farmers represent the chief priests and Pharisees; the servants are the prophets of Israel, many of whom were rejected and mistreated appallingly; the son represents Jesus, whom the owner sends in the mistaken belief that ‘They will respect my son’ – but even he is murdered by the tenant farmers. The owner finally leases his vineyard to others ‘who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.’
Making a direct reference to Psalm 118, Jesus identifies himself as the stone rejected by the builders. The Christian community for which Matthew wrote this Gospel would have found in this parable some light in understanding the destruction of the temple and the razing of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD70. It is important to decipher the parable at this level because Jesus spoke it into a historical reality.
However, as always with the Scriptures, there are many layers of meaning to uncover. The parable also brings to light the ever-present danger of clericalism and legalism which shuts away from the life of God and makes us harsh, cold and unyielding to others. It isn’t just the clergy who fall prey to clericalism: we all can. The remedy or antidote is learning to be attentive to what God is saying to us, in the Scriptures, in our prayer and in the inner sanctuary of our conscience.
One of the hallmarks that we are living by the spirit of the Pharisees is our inability to listen to the other side. St Augustine said: ‘Hear the other side.’ In other words, be open to what God is doing in the lives of those around us. The Holy Spirit works within us to create the spirit of meekness, which is openness to what God is doing in our midst – in other people’s lives but also in the world around us.
