Friday of the Second Week of Lent
Today's gospel passage (Matthew 21:33-43, 45-46) is one of the most mysterious of Jesus' parables, and also one that has been used, down through the centuries, to justify some of the most awful actions against Jews and others who are not Christian. It's a weird parable simply in terms of action: why is it that the vineyard owner keeps sending out slaves to be harmed? Why does he never call the police, raise up an army, or otherwise seek to punish the tenants? The tenants, too, act in very odd ways. Why are they bothering to beat up the slaves? They knew what the price was for renting the vineyard; their actions are more than a little inexplicable.
We can also think about how various people might hear this parable and which characters they would identify with most. I want to reflect on these different characters a bit, because I think that may help us reflect on and understand (if possible!) this complicated, odd parable. It's a bit like those choose-your-own-adventure books, where the path you take changes the outcome. This is true, too, of the character you focus on in today's readings.
The original hearers of the parable - the chief priests and elders who were wealthy owners- might have seen themselves as the vineyard owners, the ones the tenants are harming. Their ready reply to Jesus - that it would be justice to put the tenants to death and give the vineyard to other tenants - is one that they might themselves have done against the tenants' bizarre, violent, extreme actions.
Christians, though, have often interpreted God as the owner of the vineyard, and the tenants are the Jewish people who beat up the slaves and who do not "produce fruit." In this interpretation, Christians are the new vineyard tenants, the ones who will truly produce fruit. This is the kind of thinking that has led to anti-Semitic acts, which has denied the dignity of people who are also made in God's image.
I'm suspicious of both of these readings, partly because I think neither of the readings focuses on the right people. What if, for example, we focus on the slaves? What if the slaves are the Jewish people, the ones God chooses (as he says repeatedly throughout the Old Testament) to be his holy people? Indeed, there are many passages throughout the Old Testament as well, that discuss the mistreatment of the Israelites at the hands of the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Persians, and the Romans, all Gentiles of various stripes. We could look at the history of the Jews beyond what we know from the scriptures and see that throughout history, these "slaves" have indeed been done violence, often because of their particular belief in God. The Holocaust is, of course, the most haunting and recent example.
Where does that place us, as Christians? Maybe we are still the new tenants, in this reading, the ones who will hopefully treat the slaves better? In which case, we haven't done a great job, yet. Perhaps we, too, are slaves, since we are "grafted" on to Jewish roots, as Paul says in Romans 11. We, too, are called to be holy people.
Or we can change it up still further: do we collectively even become the wicked tenants! Today's first reading (Genesis 37:3-4, 12-13a, 17b-28a) might even bear out that interpretation. Joseph is sometimes seen, in Catholic tradition, as an Old Testament Christ figure (just as Moses and Elijah are too). That doesn't make Joseph Christ, of course, but it means that we might understand the significance of Jesus more fully if we see him in relation to Joseph. In this first passage, the unmistakable connection to make is that Joseph's brothers are selling him into slavery for 20 pieces of silver, just as Jesus' own disciple Judas sold him for 30 pieces of silver. Joseph was also the much-beloved son of Jacob, just as Jesus is the much-beloved son of God. But aren't we, too, seen as brothers and sisters of Christ? Are we perhaps sometimes in the position of being like Joseph's brothers: selling him out for a bit of money (or popularity)?
This is finally why our focus in Jesus's parable ought not be on the vineyard, the slaves, or the tenants, but on the vineyard owner's son. This is a clear reference to Christ himself, and reading this passage ought to remind us of the good news that despite it all, God loves us enough to send his son into to fray of our crazy, bizarre, even violent and extreme world. And while the world remains crazy and violent, Christ shows us a different way to live and bear fruit, in his own death on a cross. And that good news is true, no matter which character you most identify with.
This Lent, let us pray that we keep our focus on the right person, Christ, and on his life-giving death and resurrection. In our Lenten practice, may we be mindful of him, first.
- Jana M. Bennett