Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:

https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-august-19-2025

Mark 12:1-12

The Parable of the Tenants

     1Jesus then began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully.He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed.

     6 “He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’

     7 “But the tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.

     9 “What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10 Haven’t you read this passage of Scripture:

        “‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
          11 the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

     12 Then the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away.

This parable makes up most of our gospel reading for today, but not all of it. The listed reading for today also includes the last seven verses of the previous chapter. And to really understand this reading, we should probably look back and see what goes on those verses.

First of all, we need to remember yesterday’s Reflection, which looked at the story of the triumphal entry — the Palm Sunday story. And we said in that Reflection that the triumphal entry dramatically sharpened the confrontation between Jesus and the religious leaders. From that point on, it was probably inevitable that it would be a struggle to the death. Or at least, from our perspective, a struggle that went through the cross.

In the course of their confrontation with Jesus, some of the Jewish religious leaders demanded to know by what authority Jesus was “doing these things.” He had recently driven the corrupt merchants and money-changers out of the temple, so it seems likely that those are the “things” the religious leaders had in mind.

On that occasion, as he often did, Jesus had answered their question with one of his own. He had asked the religious leaders by what authority John the Baptist had preached and baptized. If you remember that story, you might remember that the gospel of Mark lets us listen in on the conversation of the Hebrew religious leaders as they tried to decide how to answer Jesus. And one of the things that’s most striking about their conversation is that the leaders never seem to give a moment’s thought to what the truth might be about John’s authority. Their deliberations are based entirely on ‘PR’ – on what answer will be most acceptable to the public. And eventually, they just give up and say they don’t know. So in response to their challenge and their evasion, Jesus tells the parable that’s the basis of our Reflection for today.

In the parable, a man establishes a vineyard and then rents it out. When the harvest comes, the tenants refuse to pay the owner his share of the fruit, then beat and abuse his servants, and finally kill his son. It seems to me this parable is intended to represent God’s relationship to the leaders of the covenant people.

You might remember that the people of Israel thought of themselves — and especially of their religious tradition — as ‘God’s vineyard.’ And that really was a pretty good metaphor reflecting their understanding of their relationship with God. A vineyard takes a lot of work to establish. You have to clear the land, plant the vines, nurture them and water them and protect them from wild animals. The people of Israel thought God had done something like that when he established them in the promised land – clearing the land of its previous occupants, planting the Hebrews there, and then nurturing and protecting them.

And when you think back to the things God said when he had established his covenant with the people who became the nation of Israel, he had always expected them to ‘bear fruit.’ God said they were intended to be a blessing to the other nations of the world, and to live by distinctive standards of morality and charity. They were to be a fruitful people. But instead, they just tried to keep the blessing for themselves – to keep themselves separate as a “holy people.” And they didn’t even do that particularly well.

And to carry the metaphor a step further, you might say that God put his ‘vineyard’ in the care of a selected group of leaders – the priests and the Levites. But that selected group of leaders often seemed to regard the covenant as a sort of entitlement – as something intended only for their own power and enrichment.

Then, when God sent servants (in the persons of the prophets) to call the people to be fruitful, many of these servants suffered persecution and even death at the hands of the leadership.

Now, of course, God had sent his own Son into his vineyard to call the tenants to bear fruit, but as we know, they would soon reject and kill him, as well.

It seems pretty obvious that this parable expresses God’s take on the history of his relationship with the people of Israel – and especially with their leaders. But it also seems to me to ask a challenging question to all of us — Christians as well as Jews — who think of ourselves as ‘God’s people.’ And that question is this: Are we bearing fruit for God?

It probably comes as no surprise to hear that this is an especially challenging question for those of us who are engaged in church leadership. And that doesn’t just mean pastors — it includes elders and deacons as well. It’s especially challenging for us since it was the religious leadership of ancient Israel that the parable was originally directed at. So it’s probably intended that every church and every individual follower of Jesus should be reflecting regularly on how we’re doing when it comes to bearing fruit for God. Because this parable seems to say that if we’re not bearing fruit, God might just throw us out of the vineyard and turn it over to people who will.

Let’s pray. Lord, by your Holy Spirit, move us to be people who bear fruit for you – both individually and as congregations. Help us to serve others as Jesus served, to live in imitation of him in all ways, and to lead others to become his disciples, too. Amen.

Grace and Peace,

Henry