“I’d like your opinion about this:
There’s this guy I know who had two kids. He asked one kid to clean up his room and the
kid stubbornly answered ‘No way!’ But
after some thought, the kid changed his mind and cleaned up his room. The father went to his second kid and asked
her to do the same thing. She answered,
‘Of course, Dad. Whatever you
want.’ But she never did go to clean up
her room. So which of these two did what
their father wanted them to do?” They
responded, “The first kid.”
Jesus then
said, “It is for this reason that the drug addicts and the sex workers will
experience God’s utopia and you won’t.
John showed you the way of God and you didn’t believe him so as to
repent and be baptized. But the drug
addicts and sex workers flocked to him to get a new start. You all saw this, but you still didn’t change
your mind to repent and be baptized.
Now
listen to this story. A man owned a few
blocks in an urban area, so he built a set of apartment buildings there, rented
them out and then set managers over each building to keep them up and to
collect the rent. Month after month, he
sent employees to the managers to collect the proceeds, but the managers shut
one out, beat up another, and another disappeared and was never heard from
again. Then the owner sent groups of
employees to collect his proceeds, and this started a gang war, but it didn’t
get him a single dime. So then the owner
sent his son figuring that the sight of him would cause the managers to
reconsider their actions. But seeing the
owner’s son at the door, the managers decided quickly that if the son was out
of the way, the owner, being old and feeble, there being no one to care for the
property after him, would just wither and fade away. So they grabbed the son, took him out of the
city and killed him, leaving his body exposed to the elements. So let me ask you, what do you think the
owner will do to those managers?” One
answered, “He will call the police?”
Everyone listening to this laughed.
Then another said, “In his fury, he will do to those evil managers
exactly what they did to him. He will
kill them all and give the management to someone who will give to him what he
deserves.” Jesus replied, “You are
correct. So what is your problem? Haven’t you read in the Word, ‘The one whom
the leaders rejected as a criminal has been chosen as the king of them all—and
this is an amazing thing to see’? God’s
nation will be taken away from you and given to a people who will give Him the
proceeds he requires.”
Guesswork
Recently there has been a lot
of discussion in theological circles about the reason for Jesus’ death. The idea of God demanding innocent human
sacrifice for the justification of the masses just doesn’t seem ethical or just
to many theologians. So people have been
looking for other ideas, both ancient and modern, about what the death of Jesus
was really about. Some say that Jesus
was paying off Satan for the nations.
Some say that God was demonstrating that nonviolent resistance is a more
powerful weapon than violence. Some say
that Jesus was showing how humans could demonstrate the sacrificial love of
God. But all of these ideas have one
thing missing: none of them look to
Jesus for the reason he was dying.
The
parable above is the only detailed explanation Jesus gave to his death and why
it is significant. The parable of the
managers is found in all three of the synoptic gospels (Matthew 21, Mark 12,
Luke 20), and it stands at the crux of Jesus discussion with the elders and
priests, who ended up sentencing Jesus to death. Because of this parable, in all three
gospels, the elders and priests attempt to arrest Jesus to put him on trial,
but only stop because of the crowd, which establishes their reasoning for
obtaining Judas’ services. Thus, this
parable not only explains Jesus’ thoughts for why he should die, but also why
his killers thought it necessary to kill him.
Location, Location, Location
As a background to this parable, we need to
understand what Jesus had recently done.
First, he entered into Jerusalem on a
colt, with his disciples (from Galilee) declaring him to be the king of Jerusalem Jerusalem Jerusalem
Super Powers
The Sanhedrin and the High
Priest were the rulers of the Jewish people throughout the world. This had been the case from the time of the
Maccabees, when a priestly family took over the rule of Judea . Even the Romans, who had control of the land,
recognized the power of the Sanhedrin and priests and so tried to direct the
Jewish people by determining which of the family of Aaron would be high
priest. So while the Romans and the
Herods had political control of the physical resources of Israel
Jesus understood this, and so he didn’t openly confront
the Romans, but leveled his political concerns on the priests, the Sanhedrin
and on the religious and political parties of the Jewish peoples—the Pharisees
(powerful in Galilee and the diaspora) and the Sadducees (powerful in Jerusalem
The other thing that was understood is that if a
Davidic king ruled over the Jewish people, this would be king not only over
God’s chosen people, but he would be God’s chosen emperor over the world,
according the prophecies of Daniel. So
to claim to be the rightful king of Jerusalem
So, What’s The Point?
Now to the parable. Jesus uses the idea of the vineyard from
Isaiah 5, where the vineyard is used as a metaphor for God’s nation. Jesus uses this idea and then adds the idea
that the rule of God’s nation was “leased” to a group of managers. These managers are clearly meant to be the
priests and elders who were currently ruling the Jewish people. These managers received a number of
messengers from the true ruler of God’s people—the prophets who spoke for
God. The prophets insisted that the
managers give God the true proceeds of his people—obedience, the doing of God’s
will.
Matthew especially emphasizes this aspect of
obedience by placing the parable of the two children just before the parable of
the managers. The two children heard the
will of the father—for the people of Israel
So, in the parable, the owner decides to send his
son. This is the Son of God, the king of
God’s people, the emperor of the world. The
current rulers, however, desire the rule of God’s people for themselves. So they kill the Son. In the parable, the purpose of the death of
the Son is not to see the Son resurrected and rule again. Rather, it is to show the unworthiness of the
rulers of God’s people.
Jesus is accusing the rulers of being the murderers
of God’s messengers, the murderers of God’s emperor and the rejecters of God’s
will. Because of all this, Jesus says,
they will be rejected as God’s rulers.
Not just rejected, Jesus says, but destroyed. Because they have killed God’s chosen ruler,
he will come and destroy these upstarts—the priests and Sanhedrin, and all of
the symbols of their rule, which is Jerusalem
In a sense, with this extreme accusation, Jesus was
setting himself up to be murdered. He
knew that the priests and elders would receive this as a statement of enmity
and rejection on Jesus’ part. And so
they would work behind the scenes to kill Jesus.
Reversals
There is one other aspect
that we have to recognize here. That
Jesus is saying that his death not only is the level which causes God’s
rejection of the unrighteous rulers of His people, but it is also the cause of
a new set of rulers to be set over God’s people. Rulers who will give to God what he
wants—obedience to God. These are rulers
who have proven themselves by being persecuted as Jesus was. Rulers who display their faith through
enduring devotion in the midst of humiliation, sacrifice and suffering.
What
did Jesus really begin with his death?
He began a process of religious power and leadership. The leaders who claim to speak for God will
come from the anawim, and they must be respectful of the anawim. If the leaders reject or persecute the
anawim, then God will reject those leaders and set them aside, replacing them
with leaders who will allow the anawim to have a place of leadership. Jesus himself IS emperor, the ruler beside
God to rule the whole world. But Jesus’
representatives are not the popes, bishops or synods made up of the wealthy and
powerful. Rather, they are among the
prophetic who live out God’s will among the poor, choosing to be poor
themselves. And if the leadership of
God’s people refuse to listen to these anawim, then Jesus will kick them out of
leadership and establish a new people.
He has done it before, and He can—and will—do it again if necessary.
Oppressors will get what they deserve
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