
Mark 12.1-11, Matthew 21.33-46, Luke 20.9-19.
Most Christians think of
Thing is, that’s only some Pharisees. Just like how the gospel of John showed Jesus getting opposed by “the Judeans” (
And the Pharisees weren’t the only bad guys. There were
When Jesus tells this story, it’s not just to Pharisees. It’s to members of the
He compares ’em to vineyard farmers who are utterly rebelling against their boss. Because the vineyard, they figured, was theirs. And the fruit was theirs. And the boss was never gonna return to deal with them, so they were free to run things however they liked, with no consequences. You know, pretty much like our elected officials run things now, despite the people who elect ’em.
Mark 12.1-11 KWL - 1 Jesus began to tell the Pharisees parabolically,
- “A person plants a vineyard, puts a wall round it,
- digs out a winepress trough, builds a watchtower,
- gives it to farmers, and goes abroad.
- 2 In time he sends a slave to the farmers,
- so he might get fruit from the vineyard from the farmers.
- 3 Taking the slave, the farmers beat him,
- and send him away with nothing.
- 4 Again, the master sends another slave to them;
- they punch that slave in the head and insult him.
- 5
The master sends another; that one they kill. - He sends many others; some they beat, some they kill.
- 6 The master has one beloved son, and sends him to them last,
- saying this: ‘The farmers will respect my son.’
- 7 These farmers tell themselves this: ‘This is the heir!
- Come! If we kill him, we’ll be the heirs!’
- 8 Taking the son, they kill him
- and throw him out of the vineyard.
- 9 So what will the master do with the vineyard?
- He’ll come and wipe out the farmers, and give the vineyard to others.
- 10 Didn’t you read this writing?—
- ‘A stone which the housebuilders reject:
- This is made into the cornerstone.
- 11 This is made by the Lord,
- and to our eyes, this is amazing.’ ”
Ps 118.22-23 - 12 The senators were looking to have Jesus stopped,
- yet were afraid of the crowd.
- For they knew the parable he told is about them.
- Abandoning him, they left.
The Matthew and Luke versions.
The other two gospels tell the story again, with slight differences.
Matthew 21.33-46 KWL - 33 “Listen to another parable.
- “A person is a homeowner who plants a vineyard, puts a wall round it,
- digs out a winepress trough in it, builds a watchtower,
- gives it to farmers, and goes abroad.
- 34 When the time for fruit is near,
- he sends his slaves to the farmers to take his fruit.
- 35 Taking his slaves, the farmers beat one, kill one, and stone one.
- 36 Again, the master sends other slaves, more than in the first group.
- 37 Later he sends them his son, saying, ‘The farmers will respect my son.’
- 38 The farmers, seeing the son, told themselves, ‘This is the heir!
- Come! If we kill him, we’ll have his inheritance!’
- 39 Taking the son,
- they throw him out of the vineyard and kill him.
- 40 So when the master comes to the vineyard, what’ll he do to these farmers?”
- 41 The senators told him, “Those evil evildoers. He’ll wipe them out.
- He’ll give the vineyard to other farmers,
- who’ll give him the fruit at the proper time.”
- 42 Jesus told them, Didn’t you read this in the Writings?—
- ‘A stone which the housebuilders reject:
- This is made into the cornerstone.
- This is made by the Lord,
- and to our eyes, this is amazing.’
Ps 118.22-23 - 43 This is why I tell you this: God’s kingdom will be taken away from you
- and will be given to gentiles who produce his fruits.
- 44 [One who falls on the this stone will be shattered.
- And whoever it falls upon, it’ll grind them up.]”
- 45 Hearing Jesus’s parable, the head priests and Pharisees know he speaks of them.
- 46 Though seeking to have him seized, the senators fear the crowd,
- because the crowd holds Jesus to be a prophet.
Luke 20.9-19 KWL - 9 Jesus began to tell the people this parable:
- “Some person plants a vineyard,
- gives it to farmers, and goes abroad for a long time.
- 10 In time he sends a slave to the farmers,
- so that they’ll give him the vineyard’s fruit.
- The farmers send him away with nothing, beaten.
- 11 The master additionally sends another slave;
- the farmers also send that one away with nothing, beaten and insulted.
- 12 The master additionally sends a third;
- the farmers throw this one out seriously wounded.
- 13 The vineyard’s master says, ‘What can I do?
- I’ll send my beloved son. Perhaps they’ll respect this one.’
- 14 Seeing the son, the farmers dialogued with themselves,
- saying, ‘This is the heir!’
- If we kill him, we can become the heirs!’
- 15 Throwing the son out of the vineyard, they kill him.
- So what will the vineyard’s master do to them?
- 16 He’ll come and wipe out these farmers, and give the vineyard to others.”
- Those listening said, ‘Never say that!’
- 17 Looking right at them, Jesus said,
- “So who is this writing about?—
- ‘A stone which the housebuilders reject:
- This is made into the cornerstone.’
Ps 118.22 - 18 Everyone falling upon this stone will be shattered.
- And whoever it falls upon, it’ll grind them up.”
- 19 The scribes and head priests were looking
- to have hands thrown on Jesus at that hour,
- yet were afraid of the people.
- For they knew this parable he told is about them.
The variants in the other gospels don’t change the story much. Luke drops Jesus’s description of the homeowner building the vineyard from scratch—which does help us appreciate the work the homeowner (i.e. God) put into building the vineyard (i.e. Israel), but isn’t wholly necessary to the story.
Unlike Mark, the other gospels have the senators verbally respond to the parable. In Matthew they answer Jesus’s question of what the boss would do to his homicidal employees: He’ll wipe them out and give the vineyard to others. Same conclusion Jesus made in the other gospels—it’s the only logical conclusion, right?—and the senators are no dopes.
But in Luke, the senators’ reaction is a surprising
The other thing in the Matthew and Luke versions which isn’t in Mark (and isn’t found in all the ancient copies of Matthew either) is Jesus’s line about how everyone who falls on the stone will be shattered, and everyone on whom the stone falls will be ground up. (“Ground to powder,” as the
Isaiah 8.11-15 NLT - 11 The L
ORD has given me a strong warning not to think like everyone else does. He said, - “Don’t call everything a conspiracy, like they do,
- and don’t live in dread of what frightens them.
- 13 Make the L
ORD of Heaven’s Armies holy in your life. - He is the one you should fear.
- He is the one who should make you tremble.
- He will keep you safe.
- But to Israel and Judah
- he will be a stone that makes people stumble,
- a rock that makes them fall.
- And for the people of Jerusalem
- he will be a trap and a snare.
- 15 Many will stumble and fall,
- never to rise again.
- They will be snared and captured.”
As for being crushed, it’s to remind us how Daniel described the L
Daniel 2.34-35, 44-45 NLT - 34 “As you watched, a rock was cut from a mountain, but not by human hands. It struck the feet of iron and clay, smashing them to bits. 35 The whole statue was crushed into small pieces of iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold. Then the wind blew them away without a trace, like chaff on a threshing floor. But the rock that knocked the statue down became a great mountain that covered the whole earth.”
- 44 “During the reigns of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed or conquered. It will crush all these kingdoms into nothingness, and it will stand forever. 45 That is the meaning of the rock cut from the mountain, though not by human hands, that crushed to pieces the statue of iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold. The great God was showing the king what will happen in the future. The dream is true, and its meaning is certain.”
The farmers’ behavior.
This parable tends to get translated as if the owner is a landlord who’s rented the vineyard out to tenants, and when he asks for fruit he’s asking for his percentage of the harvest as rent. Now, that may be how medieval and modern tenant farming works, but nowhere does Jesus say that’s what’s going on. The farmers aren’t tenants; they’re employees.
Hence all the fruit belongs to the master; it doesn’t rightly belong to the farmers in any way. Yet whenever he sent other slaves to collect it, the farmers beat and killed them. And when he sent his son—who’s not a fellow slave, but a fellow master, and therefore should be respected—they murdered him. Either they killed him in the vineyard and threw his body out,
So Jesus, and the senators, recognized the only subsequent course of action was for the master to come destroy those farmers. If this doesn’t sound like our gracious God to you, I can’t help you there; you’re expecting him to be gracious to unrepentant murderers who have every intention of continuing to murder. It’s not safe to any of their neighbors to let them live. You might recall ancient Israel was commanded to let the poor glean the corners of their vineyards; to not harvest damaged grapes but leave them behind for the needy.
The rejected stone.
Jesus had entered Jerusalem the day before, and the locals had greeted him with quotes from Psalm 118:
Mark 11.9-10 NLT - 9 Jesus was in the center of the procession, and the people all around him were shouting,
- “Praise God!
- Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the L
ORD ! - 10 Blessings on the coming Kingdom of our ancestor David!
- Praise God in highest heaven!”
“Praise God” is how the
So yes, they were quite aware of that scripture about the stone which the housebuilders reject; Psalms was their hymnal, and they knew all its songs. They knew Psalm 118 is about a messiah returning to Israel in victory, after defeating his enemies; they knew the stone is a metaphor for someone who wasn’t expected to be anyone important, but now here he is.
Psalm 118.19-24 NLT - 19 Open for me the gates where the righteous enter,
- and I will go in and thank the L
ORD . - 20 These gates lead to the presence of the L
ORD , - and the godly enter there.
- 21 I thank you for answering my prayer
- and giving me victory!
- 22 The stone that the builders rejected
- has now become the cornerstone.
- 23 This is the L
ORD ’s doing, - and it is wonderful to see.
- 24 This is the day the L
ORD has made. - We will rejoice and be glad in it.
So in including a son in his story, and in quoting Psalm 118 for them, Jesus made it crystal clear he was aware they were plotting against him. And that in killing him, they’d simply be fulfilling this story… and God’s judgment against them would come next.
But exactly like subjects rebelling against their master, they didn’t wanna hear it, and wanted someone to grab Jesus and shut him up. The only reason they didn’t was because they knew the crowds would immediately attack them as heretics. So they waited for a more opportune time. Say,
