They will respect my son (Mark 12:1-12)
12 Then he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watchtower; then he leased it to tenants and went to another country.2 When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. 3 But they seized him, and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. 4 And again he sent another slave to them; this one they beat over the head and insulted.5 Then he sent another, and that one they killed. And so it was with many others; some they beat, and others they killed. 6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not read this scripture:
‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
11 this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes’?”
12 When they realized that he had told this parable against them, they wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowd. So they left him and went away.
-Mark 12:1-12 (NRSV)
February 28, 2016 Sermon Notes
In last week’s Bible text we read in Mark 10 about some of the events that took place as Jesus and his disciples traveled to Jerusalem in preparation for his final showdown with the corrupt religious authorities. In Mark 11 he arrives in the capital city and begins the eventful final week of his life. On Palm Sunday we will come back and look at that story in detail. In the meantime, in order to fit in as much of his teaching as we can over the few Sundays of Lent this week the Narrative Lectionary jumped straight ahead to Mark 12.
A new tweak on an old favorite
Early on in the week Jesus told a variation on a story that every Jew in Jerusalem would have already known. In Isaiah 5 the prophet talked about God as the owner of a vineyard that had been carefully prepared for God’s people. In the original story Isaiah describes the fact that although the land had been carefully tended and everything that could be done to ensure success had been done, the people were unable to bring about the proper fruit that God intended. Despite all of God’s preparations, the people bore wild grapes.
Jesus’ retelling of the story begins the same way as the original. The same careful preparations were made. Tenants are brought in to tend the vineyard. This time, however, the tenants have success. The vines produce and the tenants are able to bear good fruit. Jesus’ listeners would have immediately recognized the differences between the two stories. Everything should have been good.
Unfortunately, all was not good. When the landowner sent some of his people to collect the rent the tenants rebelled. They kept the fruit for themselves. They fooled themselves into believing that they had done the preparations themselves and that they were worthy of all of the credit. They beat and ultimately killed the landowners’ people. Things escalated and eventually they did the same thing to the son of the landowner.
They knew who he meant
The corrupt religious officials knew immediately that Jesus was talking about them. They had not built the temple. They had not brought the fruit of God’s covenant with the Jewish people into being. They were the beneficiaries of God’s love for them, yet they were acting as if that love was theirs alone. They were behaving as if they had the ability to keep God’s grace to themselves.
Jesus’ parable very quickly reminded them of the fact that idea was utter fallacy. They resented that fact. In fact they resented it so much that in a few short days they would hand Jesus over to death. He would die at the hands of the Roman Empire so that the religious officials might somehow cling to their corrupt hold on power.
A bit of a disclaimer
A word of caution here: throughout Christian history, the church has often misinterpreted this story and others as an excuse for persecution against our Jewish cousins. That is a mis-characterization of what is going on here. Jesus was a Jew. He was speaking to his own people who were suffering under corrupt religious leadership that pretended to be acting in the best interest of the people. He was pointing out the hypocrisy of their actions and the officials killed him for it.
He means us too
In today’s sermon we wrestled with the fact that we often behave in exactly the same way. Even in an era of increasing secularization in modern America Christians are still the religious officials in charge. We often act as if the church were something of our own creation. We behave as if the Gospel were ours alone. We forget the fact that Jesus died for us all. We ignore the marvelous things that Christ has done and fail to bear the fruit that he intends for us to share with the world. On those occasions when we do bear fruit, we act as if we are the ones who bear the credit. When called on the carpet for our short-sightedness, we respond just as angrily as the officials did when they heard Jesus’ retelling of the famous story from Isaiah.
The rest of the story
Fortunately, however, that is not the end of the story. The good news is that God does not leave us in our rebellion. Just as the landowner continued to send his people to the wicked tenants, God continues to reach out to us. God has made a covenant with us, and not even our own foolishness is able to ultimately overcome that promise. Even when the landowner’s son was killed, the landowner still had plans. This time the plan included resurrection and victory over death.
Today’s text does not ask us to have faith in our own abilities or even our own institutions. We will inevitably bear bad fruit. Our institutions will begin to act as if the gifts of God were ours alone. However, God is not done with us. God’s Son will come to us, and even if we kill him, he will overcome. That is the promise that we are to have faith in. That is the God who loves us. That is the landowner who has offered us a fruitful vineyard.
What a difference grace makes
Faith in God’s bountiful provision changes everything. It rewrites our values and causes us to see the world differently. Living in covenant with a God of grace leads us to live in a covenant of generous grace with the world around us.
Theologian and poet Walter Brueggemann describes that new reality of the kingdom of God in his poem “On Generosity”:
On our own, we conclude:
there is not enough to go around
we are going to run short
of money
of love
of grades
of publications
of sex
of beer
of members
of years
of life
we should seize the day
seize our goods
seize our neighbours goods
because there is not enough to go around
and in the midst of our perceived deficit
you come
you come giving bread in the wilderness
you come giving children at the 11th hour
you come giving homes to exiles
you come giving futures to the shut down
you come giving easter joy to the dead
you come – fleshed in Jesus.
and we watch while
the blind receive their sight
the lame walk
the lepers are cleansed
the deaf hear
the dead are raised
the poor dance and sing
we watch
and we take food we did not grow and
life we did not invent and
future that is gift and gift and gift and
families and neighbors who sustain us
when we did not deserve it.
It dawns on us – late rather than soon-
that you “give food in due season
you open your hand
and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”
By your giving, break our cycles of imagined scarcity
override our presumed deficits
quiet our anxieties of lack
transform our perceptual field to see
the abundance………mercy upon mercy
blessing upon blessing.
Sink your generosity deep into our lives
that your muchness may expose our false lack
that endlessly receiving we may endlessly give
so that the world may be made Easter new,
without greedy lack, but only wonder,
without coercive need but only love,
without destructive greed but only praise
without aggression and invasiveness….
all things Easter new…..
all around us, toward us and
by us
all things Easter new.
Finish your creation, in wonder, love and praise. Amen.”
― Walter Brueggemann
