Parable of the Tenants

Today's Reflections

 

Parable of the Tenants

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Mk 12:1-12

¹[Jesus] began to speak to [the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders] in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenant farmers and left on a journey. ²At the proper time he sent a servant to the tenants to obtain from them some of the produce of the vineyard. ³But they seized him, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. ⁴Again he sent them another servant. And that one they beat over the head and treated shamefully. ⁵He sent yet another whom they killed. So, too, many others; some they beat, others they killed. ⁶He had one other to send, a beloved son. He sent him to them last of all, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ ⁷But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ ⁸So they seized him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. ⁹What [then] will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come, put the tenants to death, and give the vineyard to others. ¹⁰Have you not read this scripture passage:/ ‘The stone that the builders rejected/ has become the cornerstone;/ ¹¹by the Lord has this been done,/ and it is wonderful in our eyes’?”/ ¹²They were seeking to arrest him, but they feared the crowd, for they realized that he had addressed the parable to them. So they left him and went away.

Reflection:

A man planted a vineyard. The parable tells us something about God, about ourselves, and about Jesus.

The landowner stands for God. He has great trust in his tenants, leaving everything to their care and their creativity. God waits for them to deliver, to produce, and to bear fruits. But the tenants claim the vineyard as their own, resorting even to violence to get rid of the true owner. But God patiently sends servant after servant, and finally his Son.

We are the tenants. God believes in our potentials. We are given responsibility for the vineyard and provided everything we need for the work. But there will be a day of reckoning: we will have to give God the produce.

The son is Jesus. The tenants, wanting to keep the vineyard, kill him. This is the supreme sacrifice of Jesus: he dies for our sins.

Do I return in gratitude to God my success

and the fruit of my work?