Missed Opportunities

“Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country: And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it.”  Matthew 21:33-34

This parable that Jesus told may have sounded familiar to the religious leaders because it was very similar to an Old Testament prophecy from Isaiah 5:1-7.  That parable was also about a vineyard owner who planted a choice vine, built a tower in its midst, made a winepress for it, and then expected choice fruit, but instead it produced wild grapes.  The vineyard owner had no other recourse than to remove his protection from it and let it go, thereby opening it up to become a wasteland.  Many times, Jesus used passages from the Old Testament in speaking to the religious leaders.

In both parables, the characters are the same.  The vineyard owner represented God, the Father.  The vineyard was the nation of Israel which God intended as His church to be a light to a lost and dying world.  The vine represented the Jewish people whom God chose to make up His body, the church.  The husbandmen represented the priests, scribes, and elders which were responsible for the care and nurture of the church.  The servants were the prophets.  God built a hedge of protection around His people to keep them safe from the heathen nations that surrounded them.  The winepress represented the law and the sacrifices by which the people of Israel were to conduct their lives and honor God until such time as God would send Christ to die for the sins of mankind.  The vineyard owner built a tower as the focal point from which all vineyard activities could be coordinated.  It was also a watchtower to provide security for all who were within the boundaries of the vineyard.  The tower was the temple, God’s abode among the people.  As long as God maintained His presence in the Holy of Holies within the temple, the people felt secure and at peace.

As was the custom among landowners, the vineyard owner had other business to which to attend and therefore let out his vineyard to husbandmen, who would benefit from their work in the vineyard, and the vineyard owner would also benefit from their efforts when he returned.  This arrangement would be mutually satisfying to both parties as long as the husbandmen kept their part of the agreement.  The vineyard owner had done everything that he needed to do.  He put a great deal of trust into those to whom he had left his estate.  God had chosen His people, provided everything they needed, gave them the law and the leaders of His church to oversee and ensure that His law was carried out.  In the parable of Isaiah, God intended for His people to bring forth the choice fruit whereby they would honor and glorify Him, but that turned out not to be the case.

In Jesus’ parable, harvest time was drawing near, thus, the vineyard owner sent his servants to collect his share.  The servants, that is, the prophets, were sent by God to warn the people of Israel of coming judgment and to plead with them to repent.  Rather than finding the fruit of obedience and reverence, they found only wild grapes of disobedience and rejection of all that was holy.  The husbandmen, that is, the religious leaders, saw an opportunity to rid the vineyard of its rightful owner and thereby confiscate all the power and profits from it.  One servant was beaten, one was killed, and another was stoned.  Several of God’s prophets, Jeremiah, Urijah, Zechariah, and others suffered at the hands of the religious leaders.

The vineyard owner was not about to give up on what rightfully belonged to him.  Even though the first servants/prophets were not received, God sent even more, but they, too, were treated in the same wicked way.  The first New Testament prophet, John the Baptist, was executed for condemning Herod’s commitment of adultery with Herodias, his brother’s wife.  If the religious leaders to whom Jesus was speaking could not call to mind about the treatment of the Old Testament prophets, surely, they could remember what happened to John the Baptist, their contemporary.

Since the warnings of all the prophets had fallen on deaf ears, God, the vineyard owner, chose to send His Son.  Surely, surely, the Son of the One who owned the vineyard would be respected.  Surely, He would not be harmed because of His relationship to the Vineyard Owner.  The Son was the ultimate Servant.  He was the husbandmen’s last opportunity to make things right.  If they reverenced and cooperated with Him, then their past misdeeds and sins could be forgiven, and they would share in the harvest, but that’s not what happened.  The climax of the story is really a prophecy that would occur within a few days.

Next time:  Blinded By Pride