Rejecting the Rock: Mark 12:1-12 - Third Sunday in Lent

There are few relationships that are more complicated than landlords and tenants.

Landlords are often portrayed of as greedy villains, preying upon those who cannot afford home ownership. In many cases, this is true. Numerous homes have been bought up by corporations and out-of-town investors who care nothing for the people living in their properties. All that matters is profit. They let their properties to deteriorate into death traps; they throw poor families out into the streets if they can get someone else to pay a higher rent.

Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash

Not all landlords are like this, however. Elizabeth and I have rented the same home for thirteen years, and we consider our landlord a friend. He repaired our furnace and refrigerator faster than we could ever have done as homeowners. Many of our church members own rental properties, and I know, without a doubt, that they genuinely care for their tenants and want to do the right thing.

But I also know that tenants can be more destructive than termites. Several years ago, we had a neighbor who destroyed the inside of her apartment by raising chickens indoors. It took nearly a year for the landlord to rehabilitate the unit. He had to replace the carpets, the drywall, the kitchen tiles, the cabinets, probably even the floorboards.

Her destructiveness pales in comparison to the tenants we encounter in Jesus’s parable.

Click here to read the Scripture text

A landowner invests heavily in a vineyard. He put a fence around it, dug a pit for the winepress, and built a watchtower; then he leased it to tenants and went away. When harvest season came, he sent a slave to collect his share from the tenants. But they beat up the slave and sent him back empty-handed. They do the same to the second slave the landowner sends. The third one they kill. This happens repeatedly until finally, the landowner sends his son, believing that the tenants will respect him. But the tenants kill him, assuming that when they do, his inheritance will be theirs.

Tenant farming is something that would have been familiar to people in Jesus’s day. With Rome in charge, people’s lands often fell under private ownership, either because those families could not repay debts, or they could not pay the taxes imposed by the Empire and local authorities. Landlord/tenant relationships were frequently hostile, and it was not uncommon for disputes to turn violent.

But the landlord in the parable is no villain. His tenants do receive a share of the harvest. He is extremely patient with them, despite their persistent violent rebellion. Jesus makes it clear that the tenants are the villains.

This is a parable about us. We are laborers in a vineyard that does not belong to us. That may sound like a raw deal until we realize who our landlord is: one who is generous and patient with us. We also need to realize who we are. We aren’t mere tenants; we are God’s children. Every day, we get to share in the bounty of God’s goodness. Still, we treat what we have and what we want with a sense of entitlement. We put our wants and desires in the place of God and do whatever it takes to satisfy them. This is why our world is in the dreadful state that it’s in. This is why our politics have become so divisive and corrosive.

When we take and keep the fruits of God’s goodness to ourselves, they spoil and rot. The evidence of this is all the food we waste, all the stuff we throw away once something better comes along, and how much we fight to get what we want.

When God sends prophets who condemn our evil ways, we reject them and kill them. When God sends his Son to reconcile us to God and lead us in the way of righteousness, we crucified him. Far from worshiping Jesus as Lod and Savior, we treat him as a nuisance and an impediment to getting what we want.

Yes, God is patient with us, despite our persistent rebellion. Nevertheless, this parable is a warning that we do not have forever to keep rejecting God. God’s Kingdom is coming, and if we are laboring against it, it will run us over. The Kingdom of God waits for no one.

But we can rewrite this parable. Everything belongs to God, including our lives. God has put us on this beautiful planet he created. God has claimed us as his own in baptism and promised that we will inherit his kingdom. Every day, we enjoy the fruits of God’s goodness. The simple fact that we are laborers in God’s vineyard is good enough. Trusting and obeying what Jesus teaches us, we bear much fruit. There is more than enough of the harvest not only to meet our own needs, but to meet others’ needs as well. In fact, the love and joy we experience as God’s laborers draws others to join us. There is no fruit that pleases God more than the fruit of a new believer.

When you walk in faith, hope, and love, you are close as you will ever be to the Kingdom of God. Your life and your eternity have been firmly founded on Christ, the chief cornerstone. Don’t reject the rock. Remember who you are and whose you are. This is the Lord’s doing, and it will be amazing in your eyes.