🍇 Parables of the Bible — Unit 13: The Vineyard and the Tenants

Orientation

In Unit 2 we heard Isaiah's Song of the Vineyard: God planted Israel like a choice vine, cared for it, and looked for good grapes, but it produced wild grapes. Now, some seven centuries later, Jesus stands in the temple courts in Jerusalem and begins a story that every listener recognizes at once: "There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower" (Matthew 21:33). The hedge, the winepress, and the tower come straight from Isaiah 5. The crowd knows this song. But Jesus adds something Isaiah never said. This time the problem is not the vineyard. It is the tenants.

This parable brings the Old Testament parables of this course to their climax. The vineyard owner of Isaiah 5 finally sends his own son, and the tenants kill him. It is the most openly autobiographical parable Jesus ever told. Within a few days of telling it, it came true.

I. The Setting: A Week of Confrontation

Matthew places this parable in the last week of Jesus' life. He has entered Jerusalem to the crowd's hosannas (21:1–11), driven the money changers from the temple (21:12–13), and been challenged by the chief priests and elders: "By what authority are You doing these things?" (21:23). Jesus answers with three parables in a row. The parable of the two sons (21:28–32) shows that tax collectors and harlots who repent enter the kingdom ahead of religious leaders who say yes to God but never obey. The parable of the tenants (21:33–46) follows. Then the parable of the wedding banquet (22:1–14) shows invited guests refusing the king's feast. All three answer the question of authority, and all three are aimed at the leaders standing in front of Him.

The leaders understood exactly whom He meant. "Now when the chief priests and Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that He was speaking of them" (21:45). They wanted to arrest Him on the spot but feared the crowds, who regarded Jesus as a prophet.

II. The Sharecroppers (Matthew 21:33)

The owner planted the vineyard, protected it with a hedge, dug a winepress, built a watchtower, "and he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country." This was common in Galilee and Judea. Wealthy landowners, often living far away, leased their land to tenant farmers who worked it and paid the rent at harvest, usually as an agreed share of the crop. The owner supplied everything; the tenants supplied the labor and returned a portion of the fruit. Surviving documents from the ancient world show that disputes between absent landlords and tenants were frequent and sometimes violent, so Jesus' hearers knew this situation well.

The meaning is not hard to see. God is the owner. The vineyard is Israel and, more broadly, the kingdom of God entrusted to His people. The tenants are the leaders who were responsible for tending it and returning its fruit to God. Every good thing they had came from Him. A sharecropper owns nothing; he manages what belongs to another. "We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out" (1 Timothy 6:7). Every Christian, and especially every pastor, is a tenant in God's vineyard, not its owner.

The owner's journey to "a far country" pictures God's patience. To careless people, God may seem far away, as if He will never come to ask for His fruit. But He is not absent; He is waiting. The long delay is mercy, not indifference.

III. The Servants (Matthew 21:34–36)

"Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit. And the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them" (21:34–36). The owner was asking only for what was right, what had been agreed from the beginning. The tenants responded with violence.

The servants are the prophets. The chronicler summed up Israel's history in nearly the same words: "The LORD God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people... But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, till there was no remedy" (2 Chronicles 36:15–16). Zechariah the son of Jehoiada was stoned in the temple court (2 Chronicles 24:20–21). Jeremiah was beaten, imprisoned, and thrown into a cistern (Jeremiah 20:2; 38:6). Jewish and Christian tradition adds that Isaiah was sawn in two, and Hebrews 11:37 may refer to this. John the Baptist, the last of the prophets before Christ, had just been beheaded. Jesus Himself said, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!" (Matthew 23:37).

Notice the owner's astonishing patience. A human landlord would have sent soldiers after the first servant was beaten. This owner sent servant after servant, more each time. That patience is the heart of God. Yet the tenants mistook patience for weakness, as people still do.

A Sunday school teacher in Washington once had a mischievous boy in his class who would not listen and kept others from listening. The teacher was discouraged. The boy went west and wasted years in reckless living. Long afterward, after a night of debauchery in Baltimore, he wandered into a cemetery and saw his old teacher's name on a tombstone. Memories of the teacher's words came flooding back. He knelt at the grave and gave his life to Christ, and he later became one of the most beloved pastors in Virginia. The teacher had died believing his work with that boy had failed. God's messengers often do not live to see the fruit of their faithfulness.

IV. The Son (Matthew 21:37–39)

"Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, 'They will respect my son'" (21:37). Mark adds that the owner had "one son, his beloved" (Mark 12:6), echoing the voice from heaven at Jesus' baptism: "This is My beloved Son" (Matthew 3:17). Here Jesus tells the leaders, in story form, exactly who He is. He is not one more servant in the line of the prophets. He is the Son and heir.

"But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.' So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him" (21:38–39). Their reasoning was as foolish as it was wicked. Some scholars suggest they hoped that, with the heir dead, the property would be treated as ownerless and fall to those who occupied it. They wanted the vineyard without the owner. That is the essence of sin: we want God's gifts without God's rule.

The detail that they cast him "out of the vineyard" and then killed him is striking. Within days, Jesus was led outside the walls of Jerusalem and crucified. "Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate" (Hebrews 13:12). The parable is prophecy. Jesus knew exactly what was coming, and He told His killers the story ahead of time, still inviting them to repent.

V. The Settlement (Matthew 21:40–46)

Then Jesus asked, "Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?" (21:40). This is the method we met with Nathan and David in Unit 5: a juridical parable. The listeners are asked to judge the case, and they pronounce sentence on themselves: "He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons" (21:41). It is as if we asked, "What should a landlord do with tenants who refuse to pay and kill the rent collector?" Anyone would answer, "Evict them and rent to someone who will pay."

Jesus then quoted Psalm 118:22–23: "The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the LORD's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes" (21:42). The image changes from farming to building, but the point continues. The leaders, the "builders," were rejecting the very stone God had chosen to hold the whole building together. Many interpreters note a wordplay in Hebrew between ben, "son," and eben, "stone." The rejected Son is the chosen Stone. The rejection would not defeat God's plan; it would fulfill it through the resurrection.

"Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it" (21:43). Christians have understood this verse in different ways, and it must be handled with care. Some have read it as God rejecting the Jewish people as a whole and replacing them with the church. Most careful interpreters today point out that the parable is aimed at the leaders, who "perceived that He was speaking of them" (21:45); that the first "nation bearing the fruits" was the community of Jesus' followers, all of them Jews at first, which soon welcomed Gentiles; and that Paul insists "God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew" (Romans 11:2). The warning is not ethnic pride on our part. It is a warning to every steward, Jewish or Gentile, who receives God's vineyard and refuses to give Him its fruit.

The settlement came about forty years later, when Roman armies destroyed Jerusalem and its temple in AD 70. As we saw in Unit 2, God's patience is great but not endless. Yet even in judgment the parable points to grace. The Son whom the builders rejected became the cornerstone of a new temple made of living stones (1 Peter 2:4–7), where anyone who comes to Him is welcome.

VI. What Fruit Does God Expect?

The whole parable turns on fruit. The owner sent his servants "that they might receive its fruit" (21:34), and Jesus said the kingdom would be given "to a nation bearing the fruits of it" (21:43). What fruit does God look for? Scripture answers in several ways, and together they give a full picture.

First, fruit is character: "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Galatians 5:22–23). Second, fruit is righteous conduct, the justice and mercy Isaiah looked for in the vineyard (Isaiah 5:7) and that Paul prayed would fill the believers, "being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:11). Third, fruit is good works done for others, "being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God" (Colossians 1:10). Fourth, fruit includes people brought to God; Paul longed to visit Rome "that I might have some fruit among you also" (Romans 1:13). And fifth, fruit is praise: "the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name" (Hebrews 13:15).

Notice that none of this fruit is produced by our own strength. Jesus said, "He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). The tenants failed not because the vineyard was poor but because they wanted to keep for themselves what belonged to the owner. The religious leaders had temples, sacrifices, schools, and traditions, but they would not give God what He was actually seeking: repentant hearts, lives of justice and mercy, and faith in the Son He sent. The same danger faces every church. Activity is not the same as fruit. God is not impressed by the size of the vineyard but by what it yields for Him.

VII. The Mirror for Today

Jesus' parables are mirrors, and this one is held up before every church and every pastor. We are tenants, not owners. God has entrusted us with His word, His people, His gifts, and His mission. He looks for fruit: faithful teaching, changed lives, justice and mercy, and the good news carried to those who have not heard. Leaders are especially warned. It is possible to be busy in the vineyard and still treat it as our own, protecting our positions and resenting anyone God sends to call us back to Him.

The parable also calls for a personal response to the Son. The leaders knew the story was about them, and still they sought to arrest Him. Knowing the truth is not enough. The question the parable leaves with each reader is simple: when the Owner sends His Son, will we receive Him or reject Him?

VIII. Preaching the Tenants

A clear outline follows the parable's own movement with four words: the Sharecroppers, entrusted with God's vineyard; the Servants, God's patient messengers rejected again and again; the Son, the final and greatest messenger, cast out and killed; and the Settlement, when the Owner comes to judge. Link the sermon to Isaiah 5 so hearers feel the weight of seven centuries of God's patience. Handle verse 43 carefully, avoiding any hint of contempt for the Jewish people. End at the cornerstone: the rejected Son is now the risen Lord, and every tenant can still come to Him.

Closing

The Owner of the vineyard gave everything: the land, the wall, the tower, the winepress. He sent servant after servant, and finally His beloved Son. The tenants cast Him out and killed Him, and it seemed that they had won. But the stone the builders rejected became the chief cornerstone. The same Son who was killed outside the gate rose again, and He still asks for the fruit of the vineyard. May we be tenants who gladly give the Owner what is His, and who welcome His Son.

— Dr. Wayne Cook
Chapala Theological Seminary

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