March 28: Parable of the Vine-Growers
♫ Music:
Day 43 - Wednesday, March 28
Title: Parable of the Vine-Growers
Scripture: Mark 12:1-11
And He began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard and put a wall around it, and dug a vat under the winepress and built a tower, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey. At the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, in order to receive some of the produce of the vineyard from the vine-growers. They took him, and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent them another slave, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. And he sent another, and that one they killed; and so with many others, beating some and killing others. He had one more to send, a beloved son; he sent him last of all to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those vine-growers said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’ They took him, and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vine-growers, and will give the vineyard to others.
Have you not even read this Scripture:
‘The stone which the builders rejected,
This became the chief cornerstone;
This came about from the Lord,
And it is marvelous in our eyes’?”
Poetry: On the Swag
By R.A.K. Mason
His body doubled
under the pack
that sprawls untidily
on his old back
the cold wet dead-beat
plods up the track.
The cook peers out:
oh, curse that old lag—
here again
with his clumsy swag
made of a dirty old
turnip-bag.
Bring him in, cook,
from the cold level sleet:
put silk on his body
slippers on his feet;
give him fire
and bread and meat
Let the fruit be plucked
and the cake be iced,
the bed be snug
and the wine be spiced
for the old cove’s night-cap
for this is Christ.
PARABLE OF THE VINE-GROWERS
Kenneth Bailey in his book, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, tells the story of Jordan’s King Hussein in the early 1980s who, when informed by the security police that a faction of the army was plotting at that moment to overthrow his rule, refused to send his police to arrest or destroy the subversives. Instead, he ordered a helicopter to shuttle him to the very rooftop below which the plotters were meeting. To astonishment of the rebels, he presented himself to them undefended, inviting them to kill him now in order to avoid plunging the country into a certain civil war, which would kill thousands. One for the many was the deal. Stunned by his vulnerability for the sake of the kingdom, the rebels at that moment repented of their plans and pledged themselves to the King, kissing his hands and feet.
This true story (Bailey verified it) gives us lenses to look at Jesus’ parable above with the astonishment and surprise with which first century listeners would have heard it. Owners of a vineyard often lived at some distance from their fields, and so would send servants to collect the grapes harvested by the tenant farmers.
The parable’s first surprise is that the farmers refuse and outrageously humiliate, injure and even kill those sent to them. The owner at this point could have worked with authorities to hire trained men to arrest and punish the rebels.
The second surprise is that he doesn’t.
The third surprise is that he sends his son. Instead of responding with force, he responds with vulnerability. It could also be called grace, a longsuffering love that bought time for the rebels to repent of their ways.
In what is the fourth surprise, this love does not end well for the owner’s son (not as it did for King Hussein’s act of vulnerability). The rebels in the parable reason that this is their big chance: if they kill the son, they will inherit the land, knowing that the Mishnah had what is essentially a “squatters’ rights” clause by which possession of a farm could be gained by three years of uninterrupted occupation. The rebel’s “reasoning” arises from the desire to own what is not theirs, and do with it what they desire for themselves. (Note to self: how much of my passionate “reasoning”—if I were honest—is selfish desire in intellectual disguise?)
As I sat with this parable, three thoughts made me uneasy.
First, my human friends and I do not own this world and its people, but our desire deludes us. We think we do and can do with it whatever pleases us. We have done things with the land and things with people that are violent. If we personally have not done them, we have benefited from them (many of us, at least) and continue to stand by while it all continues. Sit with the brutal stoniness of James Tissot’s The Son of the Vineyard and ask, “Lord, what would those things be?”
Second, Jesus tells this parable after his last entry into Jerusalem, his brief takeover of the temple grounds, and in response to the religious leaders who confront him asking, “By what authority are you doing these things?” The ensuing parable of the rebellious workers is aimed right at these leaders. They know it and resent it. They’re eager to discredit this dirt-stained, peasant-footed Jesus as someone like R.A.K. Mason’s pathetic figure in his poem, “On the Swag.” (To be “on the swag” is to be someone down and out, maybe looking for work, but with a note of criminality—“swag” sometimes referring to loot gained from thievery).
As leaders (and we all lead someone, no?, even children) it’s a relief to dismiss others who challenge us when they seem to have no authority--nothing that we fear. But we do so at our peril: wisdom can come from unexpected places. Read Mason’s poem and ask, “Jesus, are you present in and speaking to me through someone too-easily dismissed?”
The final uneasy thought I had was really a longing—to be like the vineyard owner. Surely, it’s not a leap to think that anger at the injustice done to his servants was building in him, and justice does come in the parable when grace has not led to repentance. But what does the owner do with the anger along the way? He keeps turning it into grace. And here, perhaps I’m moving out from the parable and into other places in Scripture, notably the Psalms and the Sermon on the Mount where we are again and again encouraged, if we must feel anger, to turn it into grace—to turn the other cheek, to answer softly, to forgive. This is not to repress feelings of anger, for these will not be ignored and will leak out passively or otherwise. This is not to repress justice, for God will return the workers to reality: they are not the owners of this vineyard. Rather it is to take to God our anger at those who have hurt or betrayed us. The psalmist frequently vents his anger to God; he complains; he even asks God to take violent action on his enemies (the so-called “imprecatory” psalms). But the point is, he asks God to do it—rightly or not—as a way of resisting his own violent impulses.
Certainly, in this parable, told on the cusp of the cross, Jesus foreshadows that he himself will abide the rejection, the wounds, the betrayal and turn them into grace: “forgive them for they know not what they do.” Reality—which is to say, judgment—will have its day for those who resist it. But just not yet. As you listen to Poulenc’s “O Vineyard My Chosen One” (translated below), ask the Spirit to let his steadfast love lead us to repentance.
Prayer:
O vineyard, my chosen one! I planted you:
how are you changed from sweet to bitter,
to have crucified me and released Barabbas?
I protected you; I have removed stones that could bother you
and built a tower for your defense.
Todd Pickett
Dean of Spiritual Development
Spiritual Development
Biola University
About the Artwork:
The Son of the Vineyard
James Tissot
c. 1890
Watercolor over graphite on paper
25.4 x 17.78 cm
Brooklyn Museum, New York
The composition of this painting creates a zigzag path for the eye from the horizon line to the foreground. This helps to emphasize that the son of the vineyard referenced in the parable not only came from a distance on earth, but indeed represents the Son sent by the Father in heaven. The dead figure of the murdered son lays like one of the stones from the broken wall, a likely reference to Jesus being the chief cornerstone who was ignored and abandoned by the workers who go about their tasks with no notice of him, no acknowledgement of what they have done. The painting in this regard becomes a very strong visual sermon.
About the Artist:
Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836–1902) was a successful French painter and illustrator in Paris before moving to London in 1871. James Tissot enjoyed great success as a society painter in Paris and London in the 1870s and 1880s. While visiting the Church of St. Sulpice in 1885, he experienced a religious vision, after which he abandoned his former subjects and embarked on an ambitious project to illustrate the New Testament. In preparation for the work, he made expeditions to the Middle East to record the landscape, architecture, costumes, and customs of the Holy Land and its people, which he recorded in photographs, notes, and sketches. Unlike earlier artists, who had often depicted biblical figures anachronistically, Tissot painted his many figures in costumes he believed to be historically authentic, carrying out his series with considerable archaeological exactitude. His series of 365 illustrations showing the Life of Christ were shown in Paris, London, and New York, before being bought by the Brooklyn Museum in 1900. Tissot spent the last years of his life on paintings from the Old Testament.
About the Music:
“Quatre Motets pour un temps de pénitence - Vinea mea electa” from the album Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms; Mass / Poulenc: Easter Motets
Lyrics:
Vinea mea electa,
ego te plantavi:
quomodo conversa es
in amaritudinem,
ut me crucifigeres et Barrabam dimitteres?
[Translation]
My chosen vineyard,
I planted you:
how have you turned
into bitterness,
so as to crucify me and free Barabbas?
About the Composer:
Francis Poulenc (1899–1963) was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among the best-known are the operas Dialogues des Carmélites and The Gloria for soprano, choir, and orchestra. Poulenc's wealthy parents intended him for a business career in Poulenc Frères, their family pharmaceutical company, and did not allow him to pursue music. Largely self-educated musically, he studied with the pianist Ricardo Viñes, who became his mentor after the composer's parents died. Poulenc soon came under the influence of Erik Satie, under whose tutelage he became one of a group of young composers known collectively as Les Six. In his early works, Poulenc became known for his high spirits and irreverence. During the 1930s, a much more serious side to his nature emerged, particularly in the religious music he composed from 1936 onwards.
About the Performers:
Although award-winning Christ Church Cathedral Choir is 500 years old, it is justly famous for the youthfulness of its sound and its adventurous musical programming. While Oxford’s twelfth-century Cathedral, has established the choir’s relationship with early sacred music, the choir’s membership of current university students provides a fresh rhythm and contemporary vitality, which is second to none. There are twelve men and sixteen boys in the choir, and three organists. The boys are selected for their musical ability and attendance at the Christ Church Cathedral School. Of the men, six are professionals and six are undergraduates. As well as their daily services in the Cathedral, the choir’s reputation inevitably leads to a busy annual program of concerts and overseas tours. This recording is conducted by Simon Preston (b. 1938), an English organist, harpsichordist, conductor, and composer.
About the Poet:
Ronald Allison Kells Mason (1905-1971) was described by Allen Curnow as New Zealand's "first wholly original, unmistakably gifted poet". He was educated at Auckland Grammar School, where he met fellow poet A. R. D. Fairburn. Mason was the holder of the Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago in 1962. Mason wrote a number of very fine poems of undoubted power before the age of 30. Grim and spare in style, they drew on Latin and Christian traditions, and won great respect among the group of younger poets and intellectuals connected to The Phoenix Journal. However, from the early 1930s, Mason's interests diverged from poetry and he increasingly focused his creative energies on Marxist journalism and plays.
About the Devotional Writer:
A native Californian, Todd Pickett has been an English professor for many years and is now the Dean of Spiritual Development at Biola University. He has degrees in classical languages and literature from Stanford University and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland; an M. in Spiritual Formation and Soul Care from Biola University; and a PhD in English from the University of California, Irvine. He leads retreats, undertakes group and individual spiritual direction, preaches regularly, and speaks frequently to groups on Christian spiritual formation from an evangelical perspective. He lives in Costa Mesa, CA, and is married to Dottie Cox Pickett, a marriage and family therapist.