Scripture Daily

Context No. 1456 of 4322 · Luke

Context · Reflection

Luke 20:8-13: in context

8Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” 9He began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard and rented it out to some farmers, and went into another country for a long time. 10At the proper season, he sent a servant to the farmers to collect his share of the fruit of the vineyard. But the farmers beat him and sent him away empty. 11He sent yet another servant, and they also beat him and treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty. 12He sent yet a third, and they also wounded him and threw him out. 13The lord of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. It may be that seeing him, they will respect him.’

Jesus tells a parable against the leaders who have questioned his authority. A man plants a vineyard, rents it to tenant farmers, and goes away for a long time. At harvest he sends a servant to collect his share of the fruit, but the tenants beat him and send him away empty-handed. He sends another, and they beat and shame him too; a third, and they wound him and throw him out. Then the owner says, what shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him. The parable is transparent: God is the owner, the prophets are the beaten servants, and the beloved son is Christ himself, soon to be rejected as the servants were.

What stands out in the parable is the owner's astonishing patience. Servant after servant is sent and beaten, shamed, wounded, thrown out; any ordinary landlord would have sent soldiers long before, would have crushed such tenants and taken back his vineyard by force. But this owner keeps sending, keeps reaching out, keeps giving the tenants another chance to give him his due, absorbing insult after insult with a patience that seems almost reckless. And then, when the servants have all been rejected, he does something even more vulnerable: I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him. He risks his own beloved son on the hope that these violent tenants might yet turn. That is a picture of the patience of God, and of its cost. Through the long history of his people he sent prophet after prophet, and they were beaten and killed; and still he did not give up on them, but at last sent his own beloved Son, at great risk and great cost, in the hope that they would turn. There is both wonder and warning in it. The wonder is a love that keeps reaching out despite endless rejection, that will not give up, that spends its own beloved Son on rebels. The warning is that even this can be refused, that the tenants killed the son too, and that a patience so long-suffering is not the same as no reckoning ever coming. But the note to carry away is the patience: a God who keeps sending, who reaches out again and again, and who finally sends his beloved Son.

Do I grasp the patience of a God who keeps reaching out despite endless rejection, sending servant after servant and at last his own beloved Son, and how have I responded to the Son he sent, with the respect the tenants withheld, or with a refusal like theirs?

Sources