From a Different Perspective

Matthew 21.33-43, 45-46

33 ‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. 34When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.36Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. 37Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” 38But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” 39So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ 41They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’

42 Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures:
“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes”?
43Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. 46They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

 

Jesus brought light to the problems of the world by telling parables that resembled what was happening in the world.  This story is not just about a rich man’s vineyard, but about the kingdom of God.  The story seems so far beyond the norm of society that it is shocking.  Why would these tenants that have no right to the land or the produce kill the slaves or the owner’s son?  We can easily see that they are in the wrong.  When we see that point, we can then go to the deeper meaning.  The tenants are those that God has trusted to produce good fruit.  They have no right to the land or the produce.  In the time of Jesus, these were the people that stood all around him.  Today, we are the tenants.  The salves are the prophets that were killed bringing the news of the kingdom, sometimes good news, many times bad news.  The son is, of course, Jesus.

There are many things that this scripture teaches us.  One of those, for me, is that many times we need a different perspective.  The people that were caught up in this parable, the Jewish people, were really trying to do what was right.  They were trying to protect their religion from false prophets.  They were protecting the traditions that defined them.  They were so caught up in believing that they we right that they had missed the bigger picture.  Jesus told them their story from a different perspective in an effort to get them beyond themselves.

There are times in our lives that we too get caught up in our perspective.  We overlook the bigger picture.  There are times that we need to stop and look beyond where we are to see how God is working or how we are preventing God from working.  We need people in our lives that we can trust to help us see our lives from a different perspective.  Find people that you trust to tell you the truth and don’t be afraid to ask for a different perspective.  This is not a sign of weakness, but rather as sign of maturity.

 

Blessings,

Pastor Mandy