Pentecost 17A – Crazy Love
A quite introductory note: Pressed for time on several fronts, Dear Partner, I’m going to share with you a lightly edited reflection on this week’s Gospel passage that I first wrote three years ago for WorkingPreacher.org. I hope not to have to do that often, as I love our weekly fresh engagement with the text, but for now I appreciate your patience as I try to tend multiple responsibilities. Blessings on your proclamation this week and always.
Dear Partner in Preaching,
I hate to say it, but I kind of think Matthew’s a punk.
Yes, I know, we’re not supposed to say stuff like that. But I can’t help it. Just read today’s parable, for instance. It doesn’t all start here, of course, but in this week’s parable and in the weeks to come, we’re going to hear Matthew relate some pretty dark things. More than that, we’re going to hear Matthew use these things to try to win the argument he’s having with the Pharisees, the opponents of his day, as they each vie for the loyalty of Matthew’s community.
So, in this week’s parable, Jesus, according to Matthew, plays off the familiar imagery of the vineyard and the unfaithful managers of the vineyard to score some serious “gotcha” points. You know the story. A landowner plants a vineyard, digs the winepress, and does everything else you’d need to gather in a decent harvest. Then he leases it to tenants to run things while he goes away. When the harvest comes in, he sends his servants to collect his due, the share that is owed him by dint of his legal possession and industry. But they beat, stone, and even kill his servants. And when he sends more and the same thing happens. And so then he sends his son and the brutes kill him as well, hoping that if there’s no heir, and the landlord stays abroad until he dies, then maybe they’ll inherit the vineyard and keep the extra produce not just for one season but forever.
It’s seems like a kind of harebrained scheme to me, as I wonder how these stupid tenants ever think they’re going to get away with it. I mean, they’re kind of like the guys who run Ponzi schemes — don’t they realize that eventually it’s all going to unravel? Jesus seems to think so. Because after telling this parable, Jesus, at least according to Matthew, asks the critical question: “When he owner of the vineyard returns, what will he do to those tenants.” And then, right on cue, the Pharisees and the chief priests, like a couple of Costellos to Jesus’ Abbot, fall for the trap hook, line, and sinker: “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.” Which opens up the opportunity to explain the punch line of this dark joke until at last they get it…and then want to get him.
The parable and the larger part of the story it occupies fulfill several narrative and theological goals for Matthew. 1) It is part of the build-up of tension and suspense that has percolated throughout the gospel but now approaches its crescendo in the days between Jesus’ clearing out of the moneychangers and his betrayal and arrest. 2) It invites contemporaries of Matthew to see the Pharisees and chief priests in a less than flattering light and for this reason, perhaps, either to give this story of Jesus a second hearing or, if they’re already believers, to be encouraged in their decisions to follow Jesus. 3) It offers a theological explanation for why the Temple was destroyed and thereby once again confirms his community in their faith. I can sympathize somewhat with these reasons when Matthew’s community is in the minority, and is likely suffering hardship and perhaps persecution. We’re glimpsing an exchange from an unhappy, even bitter sibling rivalry, and while it’s uncomfortable we’ve seen enough of this kind of thing to at least make sense of it.
The trouble is, the fledgling Christian movement that Matthew represents went from underdog to darling-of-the-Empire in just a couple of centuries, and ever since passages like this have fanned the flames of anti-Semitism and done some serious harm. Like a friend of mine recently said, “I think that Matthew’s point in this next week’s gospel was, ‘you are going to get yours, you nasty @#$%&!'” Moreover, as she also said, “This section of Matthew seems like week after week of self-vindication, and it has been USED that way over the centuries.”
So what’s an honest working preacher supposed to do? After all, this is Holy Scripture we’re talking about, and at the same time we realize that is has, indeed, been used that way for centuries.
I have no definitive answer, but I will offer a suggestion: on this day, preach Matthew against Matthew. Or, better, preach Jesus — even the Jesus Matthew tells us about — against Matthew. What do I mean? Well, whatever is going on with Matthew, I still think he can’t quite help but preach the gospel. He just can’t help it. Take this parable, for instance. It’s kind of crazy, when you think about it. Why on earth do these guys think that they’re going to inherit the vineyard? Oh, I know, it’s a legal possibility. But it’s not like that landlord has disappeared. He’s sent servants, and more servants, and then his son. Who’s to say he doesn’t have another son, or more servants, or an army, or at least a gang of thugs at his disposal to take care of these tenants. They’re crazy, I’m tell you, just like Bernie Madoff and all the other dudes all the way back to Charles Ponzi, thinking they can get something for nothing. They’re crazy.
But they’re not half so crazy as this landowner! Think about it. First he sends servants, and they’re beaten, stoned, and killed. Then he sends more — not the police, mind you, or an army, just more servants — and the same thing happens again. So where does the bright idea come from to send his son, his heir, alone, to treat with these bloodthirsty hooligans? It’s absolutely crazy. Who would do such a think? No one…except maybe a crazy landlord so desperate to be in relationship with these tenants that he will do anything, risk anything, to reach out of them. This landowner acts more like a desperate parent, willing to do or say or try anything to reach out to a beloved and wayward child, than he does a businessman. It’s crazy, the kind of crazy that comes from being in love.
“What will the landlord do when he comes?” Jesus asks, and all they can imagine is violence: “He will put those wretches to a miserable death.” But notice — it’s not Jesus talking right now. They condemn themselves. That’s part of Matthew’s narrative strategy, I suspect, to have his opponents voice their own condemnation. But it invites us to consider a different question: not what will that landlord do, but what did that landlord do. And to that question we have Jesus’ own answer: the landowner sent his son, Jesus, to treat with all of us who have hoarded God’s blessings for ourselves and not given God God’s own due. And when we killed him, God raised him the dead, and sent him back to us yet one more time, still bearing the message of God’s desperate, crazy love.
Oh, I know, Jesus goes on, at least according to Matthew, to finish this parable and accuse and condemn the Pharisees himself. But at this point, I think Matthew can’t help himself from witnessing to a God that is even more merciful than he can imagine. Jesus slips free of Matthew’s grasp for a moment, not simply to stand in judgment of Matthew and all the rest of us since who have used this story to validate our own causes — though he does that as well, I think — but even more to introduce us to the desperate, crazy love of God, love offered not once, not twice, but a million times or more to all who will receive it.
Martin Luther once said that sometimes you have to squeeze a biblical passage until it leaks the gospel. This is one of those weeks, I think, when with equal measures of patience and faithful pressure we can give witness to the God made most clear to us in Jesus.
So maybe Matthew’s not a punk. Or, at least, no more of a punk than I am, always ready to twist the gospel to suit my own purposes. But thank God that Jesus — at least the Jesus Matthew witnesses to — is greater than our fear and insecurity and manages again and again to twist free in order that we might taste the mercy of God.
Thank you for your work to squeeze out the juice of the gospel, Dear Partner. Lord knows we need a drink.
Yours in Christ,
David
Post image: Cabernet Sauvignon growing in the Monte Bello vineyard in Santa Cruz Mountain. Posted by via Flickr and licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Still a great message and still very pertinent. Thank you for your continued ministry among us all, may you have a blessed week!
Hey, Jerry…how is the new place going?
It’s been wonderful… a great deal of fun sharing the “Good News” in this place! Hoping all is well with you brother!
My wife and I have been reading about Hosea and Gomer recently. One thing that really got our attention was when God told Hosea to not only to take her back but to do it with love inspite of her having lived the life of a prostitute. God not only wants us back but is willing to call us back offering Jesus as a love offering.
David- Thank you for an insightful article. One thought that is coming to my mind is that this parable seems to have a lot to do with identity. The tenants get their identity from thinking that the vineyard belongs to them. (Similarly, of course, the temple leaders get their identity from being, well, the temple leaders – the ones in charge.) When others – such as the slaves and the son of the landowner – challenge that idea, they don’t like it. If the vineyard doesn’t belong to them, if this isn’t where their identity comes from, then who are they? They are incredibly possessive, but, then again, so too are we. If the things we hold dear are challenged and possibly removed from us, we feel threatened too. Who would we be without them? Who would we be without our families, our jobs, our bodies, etc? Don’t we even say this is “my” family, “my” job, “my” body? We are possessive about them. The good news, of course, as you do a great job of pointing out, is that the landowner still wants to be in relationship with these tenants. That’s where their identity comes from – not from the vineyard they think is theirs, but from the landowner who trusts them (despite their track records) to take care of what’s entrusted to them. Of course, there are clear stewardship themes here, but I think there’s also a theme of identity too. Plus, you said this about the landowner: “First he sends servants, and they’re beaten, stoned, and killed. Then he sends more — not the police, mind you, or an army, just more servants — and the same thing happens again. So where does the bright idea come from to send his son, his heir, alone, to treat with these bloodthirsty hooligans? It’s absolutely crazy.” That’s not just crazy. It’s the very definition of insanity according to Einstein. As he famously said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” It would be insane for God to do that – because who in their right mind would love people like us in that way, especially given what we’ve done in the past? No one by human standards. But God does. God doesn’t follow our standards. God is insanely in love with us and will go to any lengths, even death on a cross and resurrection from the grave, to show us that. And I think we all need a God like that. I know I do. (It sounds like I have a seed of a sermon now. Thanks for the insight to help it grow.)
It’s interesting how tempting it is to derive our identity from our things and yet identity is always and only given through relationship. That’s a nice insight, Kurt. And I think it will preach. 🙂
Thank you for lifting up what the landowner has done, and is doing. I am grateful for the encouragements your perspective gives me.
Peace and thanks so much!
Thanks David! You give me courage to squeeze a little gospel from this text Sunday.
Great to hear from you, Jamie! I hope and trust you are flourishing!
Gracias por sus valiosos aportes, con los cuales domingo a domingo nutro mi predicación desde hace un par de años. El Señor, dueño de la viña, continúe bendiciéndolo y el ministerio que realiza por este medio. Abrazos desde Colombia.
I’m having a difficult time with this parable, the tenants have done all the work, and the landowner sends people to take the fruits of their labor,,,,who is really in the wrong here? especially given how much landowners took from their laborers?
perhaps the pharisees are the landowners, and their answer to Jesus that they would kill the tenants was the wrong answer, instead, the fruits of heaven will be taken from those who do not work for them and given to those who work for the fruits.
Just a note of clarification. The tenants didn’t do all the work. The landowner owns the land and puts up the wall, builds the tower, digs the winepress, cultivates the vines, and plants the vineyard. That is a lot of work. He then entrusts it to the tenants who agree to care for the vineyard and collect the fruit in exchange for giving a percentage of the harvest back to the landowner. When the time comes for the harvest, the landowner who built the vineyard decides to collect his rent, e.g. a portion of the harvest. The tenants get to keep most of the fruit of their labor. The landowner is not “in the wrong.” The tenants agreed to the arrangement and are expected to keep their end of the deal. They don’t. (See Isaiah 5:1-7; 11:1-5; Psalm 80.)