A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it,
dug a wine press, and built a tower.
This was a man that truly loved his vineyard, who did everything he could to provide for its success.
What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? (see Isaiah 5:4).
In spite of his love for this vineyard a journey took precedence and required that he lease it to others. In these others he no doubt hoped to find individuals who could love the vineyard as he loved it, whose chief reward would not be the fruit itself, but seeing the vineyard being fruitful. Love at its best loves to see others thrive. It does not only delight in their success when it itself is the one that benefits.
Then he leased it to tenant farmers and left on a journey.
At the proper time he sent a servant to the tenants
to obtain from them some of the produce of the vineyard.
The journey is also a motif in the parable of the talents. In both parables we have a period of time when the master is away and the servants are given the opportunity to demonstrate their fidelity to the master and to grow in maturity. They are invited to become competent investors or talented vintners, enriching the world around them by using the resources entrusted to them. Another theme is the way the master desires to share the task that is properly his with others. It reminds us also of the parable of the vineyard workers where the master spent his whole day in the market eagerly looking for those with whom he could share the task of working in his field.
But they seized him, beat him,
and sent him away empty-handed.
Again he sent them another servant.
And that one they beat over the head and treated shamefully.
How was it that those to whom the master entrusted his vineyard ended up behaving with such shameful violence? Did they never have even a trace of the concern for the vineyard that marked the heart of the owner? We might wonder if they did at first but then gradually succumbed to selfishness as difficulties arose.
When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? (see Isaiah 5:4).
The Lord himself admitted that his vineyard Israel could be difficult to maintain, that everything that might be done could be done, and still yield poor results. What if the tenants produced such meager results and were afraid to admit it? What if their chief problem was that they were afraid that they didn't have enough to show for their time in charge of the vineyard? Or perhaps in their care the vineyard did yield bountiful fruit but they insisted that the fruit be their reward for the effort they put in. Either attitude was tied to forgetting that the vineyard was not their own, and that the fruit was not meant to be their reward for tending it. Had they remembered it they would have been able to turn results either good or bad back over to the master when the proper time arrived. The master himself was familiar with both cases, and did not require his tenants to be masters over nature. He only required that they be faithful.
He had one other to send, a beloved son.
He sent him to them last of all, thinking, 'They will respect my son.'
But those tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir.
Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.'
The Lord of the vineyard demonstrated great care in the way he established the vineyard and in the way he himself saw to the fruit. Not only that, he treated the tenants as a special kind of vineyard themselves, visiting them again and again with his messengers hoping that this time they would give their fruit in due season.
The Lord has given us talents, perhaps a vineyard to tend, perhaps work in his field. How do we respond when he seems to be away on a journey? Do our fears about our weaknesses and limitations cause us to shortchange him on his return? Does the work we put in make us demanding and unwilling to share our fruit with others? Do we forget, in the end, that the vineyard belongs to God and that his concern for it is much greater than our own? He understands the difficulties we face in this life, and does not ask the impossible. What he asks if finally faithfulness and trust in him. We can trust that what he has given us to work with will yield what he desires, though perhaps not what would gratify our egos to see.
May we remember whose vineyard this is, and that it is a privilege to be part of something that is so dear to the master's heart. He himself wants this fruit not simply to gratify himself but precisely to enrich the entire world and if we entrust it to him we will find that it will be more than sufficient to do so.
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