Between Sundays for Week of October 9, 2023
Jesus continues confronting religious authorities in Matthew 21:33-46. He’s critical of their exploitation and mistreatment of God’s people. In telling this parable of rebellious and violent tenants, Jesus exposes the leaders, and tricks them to naming their own condemnation.
But Jesus’ parable isn’t just a word for a select few, it’s a word for all of us. These tenants reveal something about the ways we all seek to subvert and spoil all that we have been given. What the tenants in Jesus’ parable fail to understand – or choose to ignore – is that they are stewards rather than owners of the vineyard. When the landowner – the one who has planted and provisioned the vineyard – seeks his rightful share of the harvest, the tenants take offense and kill the landowner’s servants and then his own son.
The world of this parable makes clear that these tenants have been given the vocation of stewards, not the vocation of owners. As stewards, the tenants are called to the vocation of caring, tending, safeguarding, cultivating, and protecting – on behalf of another.
Writer Debie Thomas speaks a true word about our vocation as stewards: “we humans crave ownership. We like possessing things. We like controlling things. We like believing that things exist primarily to please, feed, entertain, soothe, empower, and protect us. … [T]he idea that we don’t in fact own anything deeply offends us. Stewardship deeply offends us. It insults our core sense of entitlement and threatens our core identity as consumers.”
Yet, when we understand ourselves as tenants in God’s world we can begin to ask ourselves these important questions: What is the vineyard where I (or my family) has been established as tenant farmer? Where have I been given the vocation of caring, tending, safeguarding, cultivating, and protecting on behalf of another?
These are not easy questions to answer, but they are deeply faithful questions to wrestle with.
We have been established in God’s bountiful vineyard! God’s goodness in planting and entrusting it to our care is beyond belief! God’s continued reaching out to us with forgiveness and mercy when our stewardship fails to recognize the abundance we have been given . . . this is grace itself!
Scripture gives us beautiful words to describe community and encourages us to embrace love and forgiveness as we practice being in relationship with one another, but what does that look like in the nitty gritty of everyday life? Abby and Amy talk about what having the “mind of Christ” means when it comes to birthday cakes! How do the actions and attitudes of Jesus shape your life between Sundays? Subscribe to Between Sundays on your favorite podcast app and help us spread the word through sharing.
Ponderings
The parable Jesus tells in Matthew 21:33-46 can be both a blessing and a curse. It can be a curse if we imagine that this passage is giving a dire warning to those who misuse resources. It can be a blessing when we see the passage as an opportunity to evaluate how and why we do the things we do with what God has given us. Dr. Michael Binder of Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, is fond of saying, “Generosity is what God wants for us, not from us.” How might this quote reframe the passage for you? How might Jesus be inviting the religious leaders, and us, into a more generous way of living?
