After the first Palm Sunday procession, Jesus went to the temple. He got angry and cleansed the temple. The next morning, Jesus cursed a fig tree because it had no fruit. He, then, composed himself. Jesus returned to the temple to teach. But the chief priests and elders (the religious and political authorities) questioned Jesus’s right to teach. In return, Jesus taught three hard-hitting parables (21:28-22:14). We get one per weekend. This is the second. In this week’s parable (21:33-43, the parable of the tenants) and next week’s (22:1-14, the parable of the wedding feast) each have an authority figure (the landowner and the king) who act with violence. The vineyard owner put the dishonest tenants to “a wretched death.” The king destroyed the guests who abused his servants and burnt down their city. And then the king had the ill-dressed guest bound and “thrown into the darkness where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” If we misread these parables, we would conclude that the authorities are God. We come to a terrible conclusion that our divinity gets violently angry. When people have an angry God, they give themselves license to become angry, perhaps violent—all in the name of God.
Here is how we know for certain that Jesus did not intend the authorities to be God. This week’s authority figure is an absentee landowner. Jesus knew that God is always present; our God cannot be absent. Furthermore, the parable has the son playing a minor role, one that ends with his death. Matthew wrote fifty years after the resurrection. The Lord’s death and resurrection prove that God is not the false god of wrath and violence; the death and resurrection demonstrate that God is the God of self-giving love and eternal life. We must conclude that violence and death are not the last words. Jesus lives and is with us always (28:20). Through him, the Father is with us. Life eternal is the last word.
Each of us is likely to have days when God seems absent. As a corrective, the parable invites us to consider what God has done for us. Here is the invitation contained in today’s parable: he planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower” (21:33). Jesus was asking the authorities of his day—and each of us in ours—to consider the gifts and to reshape religious life responding to the gifts.
Consider the gifts: life, love, goodness, truth, and the beauty of creation. God also created us with the amazing ability to change and to grow into our potential. Our potential includes the aspiration for eternal things—faith, hope, and love. Consequently, we have an immense debt. The gifts define the debt: the beauty of creation requires our stewardship of it. The truth demands a lifelong search for it and a commitment to truth in our lives. The God of life and love has gifted us in so many ways. We can show our appreciation by living in the Spirit. St. Paul tells us of the fruit of the Spirit: “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5:22). Living in God through the Spirit pays our debt.