Jesus said, “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them in the same way. Finally, he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.” Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’? Therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken into pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds because they regarded him as a prophet.
This is the gospel of Christ. Praise to you, Lord.
I speak to you in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The parable just read is the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, sometimes called the Parable of the Wicked Tenants. It is a challenging parable to get your mind around and understand, and it’s one that I struggled with over the past few days in terms of what to say about it and what it means to us today. As always with Jesus’ parables, we have to start by asking: What is the story about? What is it saying? What is its meaning? And importantly, to whom is the message addressed?
The parable’s message may appear simple on the surface, but it functions as an allegory filled with action and drama. Like many of Jesus’ parables, the cast of characters moves on and off stage quickly, taking unexpected and unpredictable turns. Taken together, the parables found in the Gospels explore and proclaim Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of God. While the sayings of many religious teachers dwell in esoteric or otherworldly realms, all of Jesus’ parables are grounded in human experience. They reflect real and genuine human behavior with all its complexities, touching our hearts and confronting the issues that concern us most.
Because they touch on real life, parables wake us up and make us think in directions we haven’t considered before. They prompt us to ask uncomfortable questions about our own behavior, choices, and priorities. In these stories, we meet people with wonderful talents, but also people with blind spots and foibles that trip them up—much like our own.
To understand the Parable of the Wicked Tenants, it helps to look at the context of Matthew chapter 21 as a whole. The chapter opens on the doorstep of Palm Sunday as Jesus and his disciples approach Jerusalem. Jesus enters the temple, overturns the tables of the money changers, heals the blind and the lame, and begins teaching in the temple courts. By the time Jesus tells this parable, the scribes, chief priests, and Pharisees are gathered in the crowd, listening to every word and passing judgment.
This parable draws on familiar agricultural roots. Most people in Palestine were tenant farmers who worked the land for absentee landowners, paying rent through a portion of the harvest. In this story, the landowner establishes a fully equipped vineyard with a fence, winepress, and watchtower before leaving for another country. When harvest time comes, he sends representatives to collect his share, but the tenant farmers respond with violence—beating, stoning, and killing them. Even when the landowner sends his own son, expecting them to respect him, the tenants murder him to seize the inheritance.
When Jesus asks his listeners what the owner will do, they respond that he will bring those wretches to a miserable death and lease the vineyard to tenants who will give him the produce. Jesus then declares that the kingdom of God will be given to a people that produces its fruits.
The core challenge of this parable centers on the fruits of the kingdom and the warning against hoarding what was meant to be shared. Historically, some interpretations have treated this story as a harsh rejection of Israel, which unfortunately led to anti-Semitism. Moving away from such harmful readings, we see that the true focus is our shared calling: as workers in the vineyard, we are called to produce the fruits of the kingdom—living out gospel values such as loving others, caring for the world, building justice, and serving God faithfully.
While these demands can feel overwhelming and beyond our personal gifts, God’s kingdom works continuously within us. Even when progress feels slow, prayerful faithfulness allows gospel values to take root, grow, and blossom in our individual lives and as a corporate community. May we hold fast to the call of the parables, growing in good works so that God’s kingdom is strengthened and His justice is done.
Father Ted Hales