Patrick Comerford
Lent began more than two weeks ago on Ash Wednesday (5 March 2025), and this week began with was the Second Sunday in Lent (Lent II). Today, the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers Thomas Cranmer (1556), Archbishop of Canterbury and Reformation Martyr.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Matthew 21: 33-43 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said to them:] 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. 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 Finally 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;
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 the fruits of the kingdom.’
Today’s Reflection:
It is sometimes said that the parables are ways in which Christ makes truth more accessible, taking complicated theological ideas and rephrasing them in terms that anyone can understand. But sometimes he says he is telling his parables for the opposite reason, so that the crowds might not understand (see Matthew 13: 1-9, Mark 4: 1-9, and Luke 8: 9-10).
When confronted with these puzzling parables, we are sometimes tempted to resolve the ambiguities by interpreting them allegorically. We start out by deciding immediately the characters, the objects and the actions represent; we decide before we interpret or try to apply those parables which character or object represents God, which one is Christ, who represent the Disciples, and so on.
In other words, we try to harmonise difficult parables with our own already-formed views, rather than allowing those parables to challenge and reshape our views.
But Christ tries through his parables to get us to challenge what we already presume to be simply true.
In today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 21: 33-43), do we read the parable in the way we have learned to read it? We already presume the landowner is God. God sends messengers to people (in particular, to Israel). The people reject the messengers. God sends his son. The people kill the son. So God is going to reject Israel and choose another people. But how well does the parable really fit that interpretation? How well does that interpretation fit the weight of the canon regarding the role of Israel?
As a point of comparison, it might be useful to look at the theology of Israel in Saint Luke’s Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, where we find a continuing and central role for Israel. There the invitation extended to Gentiles through Christ is to join Israel, God’s people.
At the apostolic council in Jerusalem (see Acts 15), the Christian leaders present include Pharisees (see verse 5) – not former Pharisees, but Pharisees. In the Acts of the Apostles (23: 6), Saint Paul continues to identify himself as a Pharisee – not as a former Pharisee.
For Saint Luke, the vineyard of Israel has not been taken away to be given to others. Instead, Christ has opened it to new workers called to gather in God’s abundant harvest.
The setting of the parable is the estate of a wealthy landowner. This landowner does not live on the land, and does not work at planting or harvesting. The hard work is carried out by the hired labourers, who must turn over most of what they grow to the landowner. The landowner in the parallel parable in Luke 19 is a harsh, demanding man, reaping what he does not sow (see Luke 19: 20).
This absentee landlord does not send messengers out of any great love for the people or the land, but to collect the profits from their labour that sustain his life of ease in the cosmopolitan city where he lives.
In Saint Matthew’s version of parable, the farmers have had enough. The next time the landowner sends one of his servants to collect the rent, the farmers send him packing. Forget how you have consistently read this parable for years. Those who listened to Christ telling this parable for the first time probably smiled at the demanding landlord getting a revolutionary response from the exploited tenants living on the edge and on the margins.
After all, Saint Paul tells us in the Pastoral Epistles: ‘for the scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and, “The labourer deserves to be paid”.’ (I Timothy 5: 18).
Then the landowner sends another agent to collect the rent. Again, the farmers get together to send him away empty-handed. More cause for rejoicing among the first listeners.
Then the son of the landowner arrives. He has a different standing than the messengers. He is the son, perhaps the ‘beloved son,’ probably the only son. If he is the heir and the landowner had died, then he has inherited the estate himself. If the son dies and he does not have an heir, the land goes to those who live on it, and the farmers will be free. The farmers have been resisting years of what they feel has been exploitation, and now they rise up and kill the son.
But the twist in the story is that the landowner is not dead. He does exactly what we expect him to do in the circumstances. He wreaks revenge, slaughters the farmers and replaces them with others. He does this so he can return to his life of ease in the city, living on the income provided by the labour of others.
However, no-one among those who hear this ending to the story for the first time would hardly regard it as comforting or good news.
The chief priests and the scribes who are listening the audience, and who come from the same social class as the rich landowner and his hirelings, must realise that they have just heard a scathing condemnation from Christ of how they exploit their fellow Jews.
The peasants or tenant farmers who hear the story are reminded that escalating the spiral of violence only results in more violence being visited upon them and their children.
Everyone who listens is challenged to rethink their prejudices and their judgmental values. In this, the parable is a challenge to us today.
In what ways are we like the absentee landlord, dependent on the exploitation of others to support our lives of relative ease?
How much do we consume without knowing or caring about where our clothes, our coffee, our computers, our gadgets and toys come from, or about the cost to poor people and the environments in which they live?
In what ways are we like the agents, willing to do wrong to achieve what we think is right, to escalate interpersonal and international conflict in ways that will be visited upon generations to come?
And in what ways are we responding to Christ’s challenge to care for those the world disregards and to disregard the world’s standards of strength and honour?
As Sarah Dylan writes, Christ challenges us to do the unthinkable, to turn the other cheek and let others think us weak, to care as much for God’s children who make our clothes and shoes, who mine the ore for our electronics and dispose of the toxic computer monitors we discard when want newer and better ones, as we do for our own children.
Christ challenges us to bless and honour the peacemakers rather than the mighty, to strive for justice and peace and the dignity of every human being above our own comfort.
Today’s Prayers (Friday 21 March 2025):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Truth: The Path to Reconciliation’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 21 March 2025, UN International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination) invites us to pray:
Lord, grant us a prophetic consciousness to stand against racial discrimination and injustice. Help us be bold advocates for truth and righteousness, promoting equality and unity among all people. May we create a world where every person is valued and treated with dignity.
The Collect:
Father of all mercies,
who through the work of your servant Thomas Cranmer
renewed the worship of your Church
and through his death revealed your strength in human weakness:
by your grace strengthen us to worship you
in spirit and in truth
and so to come to the joys of your everlasting kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Mediator and Advocate,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Thomas Cranmer:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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