Friday of the Second Week of Lent - March 9, 2012

Matthew 22:33 - 41

“Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.

“The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.

“But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

“Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

“He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

“Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.


I've included the entire scripture passage for today. It's a long one, but I want to approach it a bit differently than past days.

First, read the passage above from beginning to end.

Then, notice the many characters and various points of contact you find in the passage. Some of them include:

**the landowner

** the vineyard

** the wall

** the winepress

** the watchtower

** farmers/tenants

** slaves/servants

** the fruit/produce of the vineyard

** other slaves/servants

** son of the landowner

** other tenants/farmers

So if you choose to engage this parable of Jesus, you might ask yourself this: "In what way do I find a connection with these different characters or parts of the parable?" Don't bite off too many of them. Perhaps you'll want to notice the two characters or aspects of the story that stir you inwardly.

For instance, as I have sat with the parable, this is where I went:

How am I the watchtower in the story? I am the one who observes the vineyard, watches as people come and go to work in the fields. I stand apart from those who plant and tend the vineyards. I watch as violence is done to some in the vineyard. So there are some ways in which I am always watching, but never engaging, never mixing it up in the fray of life, afraid of getting involved, standing at a distance from what is real in life.

There are concrete ways in which I am this watchtower, carefully observing life, but also full of care about how I engage life. At some very significant places in life, it makes me an observer, but not a participant. It is not hard for me to find a connection with the watchtower.

There are other ways in which I am the tenants, those who work on the property that belongs to another, but without any real or tangible connection to the one whose land it was. I am on the terrain of another, in another's field. But much of the time I am on this land mindlessly, without any consciousness or contact with the One whose land it is.

This is my mindlessness, my un-consciousness, my un-seeing, living without any realized connection with God. In this way, I live much of my life as a tenant.

So I invite you to find your point(s) of connection with the passage. Write about it. Pray with it. Bring it into your prayer today.