The Song of the Vineyard
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The Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard
5 I will sing for my beloved
my love song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
2 He dug it and cleared it of stones
and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it
and hewed out a wine vat in it;
he expected it to yield grapes,
but it yielded rotten grapes.3 And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem
and people of Judah,
judge between me
and my vineyard.
4 What more was there to do for my vineyard
that I have not done in it?
When I expected it to yield grapes,
why did it yield rotten grapes?5 And now I will tell you
what I will do to my vineyard.
I will remove its hedge,
and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall,
and it shall be trampled down.
6 I will make it a wasteland;
it shall not be pruned or hoed,
and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;
I will also command the clouds
that they rain no rain upon it.7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah
are his cherished garden;
he expected justice
but saw bloodshed;
righteousness
but heard a cry! -
The Parable of the Wicked Tenants
33 “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went away. 34 When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35 But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them in the same way. 37 Then he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ 39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They 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;[a]
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes’?43 “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruits. 44 The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”[b]
45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. 46 They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.
This weekend, Anna and I were at the University of Rochester to see an actor and humorist named Nick Offerman. For those of you familiar with the show Parks and Recreation, he’s the guy who plays Ron Swanson. For everyone else, he’s just a funny guy and a really good actor. It was a great show, and a reminder of some of the highs of college life. Access to nationally-recognized artists, walking around a dense, largely accessible campus, getting to exist in an environment that prizes curiosity and exploration. It was a reminder of why I enjoyed being a student: the community, the ability to experience art for little or no cost, existing in a space that didn’t require the use of a car to get around. When I was a student, I experienced safety, even in the midst of having ideas challenged and striving for independence—and even in spite of how the university administration might have functioned. I was a privileged individual in a privileged space, enjoying what should be an utterly attainable student experience. We know, though, that many students don’t enjoy that same level of privilege and safety. Indeed, the news lately has been full of the ways in which colleges and universities are often unsafe places, where violence is perpetrated and met not with justice, but with a desire for institutional preservation. For many, including the estimated 20 percent of women who are assaulted in college, universities are examples of where leaders have failed, where justice, mercy, and compassion are rejected.
In the passage we heard earlier from Isaiah, we’re told that the people are the vineyard, and that, despite the gardner’s best efforts, the vines yielded rotten grapes. This passage from Matthew carries forth this vineyard metaphor, but separates out the tenants from the grapes. In doing so, the author makes it clear that this is a story about leadership, about those tasked with tending to the vineyard. Jesus is speaking not to the disciples or the crowds, but to the religious leaders of the land, those who, even under occupation, maintain a level of power and influence. Jesus is looking then dead in the eye and calling out the ways in which they have failed the vineyard. This parable comes right after the one we heard last week, about the two sons (one who’s more of a contrarian with a heart of gold, the other who’s just a liar). It comes right after the part of this Jesus story when the chief priests and elders question where Jesus’ authority comes from. We were told last week that Jesus had entered the temple, and we haven’t been told that he’s anywhere else yet. That is the audience and the venue where Matthew has Jesus tell this story. And, Matthew’s is a story about leaders rejecting justice, rejecting mercy, and rejecting compassion. It’s a story about what happens when leaders are allowed to do so without being held to account. It’s a story about complacency, about squandering the call that God has placed on the community.
But, it’s also a story about the role of the community in uplifting and protecting love and justice and mercy. As Rev. Sarah Townes points out, the very end of the gospel passage says that these leaders whom Jesus was just condemning, not very nicely I might add, want to arrest him. They see him as a threat to their authority. But they can’t, or they don’t want to, because of the crowds—because of the vines. The vineyard, the grapes themselves, the people who Jesus came for, have stopped the authorities in their tracks. Those sour grapes, those killers of servants and heirs, those leaders who have cast off their responsibility to the people and God they serve—they have been stopped, at least temporarily, by public outcry. This story follows Jesus’ Palm Sunday march into Jerusalem, where these same crowds were shouting “hosana,” save us. Yet, those who cried out to Jesus, have found different roles in the story—they have become the ones preventing his arrest. In doing so, they remind us of the importance of showing up, of showing support. They remind us that the story of the community is not simply about those who claim the top spot, but those who make up the crowd—that there is strength in the vines, that can stop unjust leaders in their tracks. At a time when it seems like there is nothing we can do, like our voices don’t matter, like there’s no point in showing up for one another, even in small ways, this is a reminder that we need constantly. Our strength lies in being the body together, not in our own individual worlds and abilities. Our strength is being in community, in standing up for one another, and not thinking that our leaders—whether in the church or anywhere else in the world—are beyond reproach.
We don’t have to look far to see examples of leaders who have failed their people. We don’t have to search far and wide to find examples of injustice and to hear the cries of those who have been trampled underfoot. Leaders, such as those at Cornell and other universities, the police who wrote the initial report, and the District Attorney in Tompkins county who failed to seek accountability under the law, have rejected justice. They have rejected mercy and compassion and the call to stand on the side of the vulnerable. The systems of patriarchy that maintain their grasp on our society have emboldened them. And the crowd has failed to give them pause—until now. Because, as easy as it is to find examples of failing leaders, it is just as easy to find ways in which the crowd has been the crowd. Public pushback, prompted by Cornell student journalist Cereese Qusba, has led to a national call for accountability and a state government investigation. Public pushback in the past few months has led to data center projects being cancelled and even moratoria on building new data centers. It has led cities to cancel contracts with Flock, the AI-powered surveillance camera company. Public pushback, the crowds that the chief priests and elders feared, was the Civil Rights movement, the movement for LGBTQ equality in the United Methodist Church and in the United States, the women’s rights movement. Movements such as these, and anytime the community rallies around those whose backs are against the wall—those are the crowds whom the authorities feared. Those are the people, the vines, who stood against the tenants. That is the call of the body.
We are not powerless. Or, we are—as individuals. When we are the crowd, though, when a single vine becomes a vineyard, things can change. Not just on a case-by-case basis. Cultures of violence, that see assaults on college campuses and the merging of military might with divine power as morally right, can change. Systems of greed and deprivation, that see some line their pockets while others can barely afford to feed themselves and their families, can be brought down. The crowd can reveal the Beloved Community in its midst. This is the call: to be a part of this community, the Body of Christ, joined together and connected, standing against those who have failed their people. May we live into this call, to be the crowd gathered shoulder to shoulder around this table, where there is room for all. The table of grace where the body comes back together, where love is re-membered. Amen.