I've been writing explanatory notes this week on Passion Week in Mark's Gospel. Thus far:
- Palm Sunday (Mark 11:1-11)
- Monday Money Changers (Mark 11:12-19)
- Tuesday Debates I (Mark 11:20-33)
12:1 And he began to speak to them in parables. "A person planted a vineyard and put a hedge around it and dug a winepress and built a tower and rented it out to farmers and went on a journey. 2. And he sent to the farmers a servant at the time so that from the farmers he might receive from the fruit of the vineyard.
This is the eighth and final parable in the Gospel of Mark, and it is found in all three of the Synoptic Gospels. It closely parallels the similar parable in Isaiah 5. It is a parable about the leadership of Israel at that time.
God is the planter, and the vineyard is Israel. God planted Israel. In Isaiah 5, the vineyard yields wild grapes or bad fruit. With an unproductive vineyard, God threatens to remove its hedges and let it become a dry wasteland with thorns and thistles.
The hedge in Isaiah seems to be God's protection of Israel from outsiders. Later rabbis would consider the oral traditions that made sure you kept the Law (by overkeeping it) to be the hedge of Deuteronomy 22:8--a guard rail so that you did not violate it. But it is not clear that the Law is in view here.
Interestingly, God rents out the land to farmers. Implicit in this imagery is a sense that the leaders of Israel are not exactly Israel. This is not a parable of Deism, the Enlightenment philosophy that saw God creating the world and no longer involved in it. It is at least possible that this parable has overtones of exile. Israel is being run by outsiders.
Still, God expects his portion of the land. He expects fruits of righteousness. God expects good grapes.
12:3 And having received him, they beat him and sent [him] empty-handed. 4. And again he sent to them another servant, and him they struck on the head and disgraced. 5. And another he sent, and him they killed and many others, beating some, and killing some.
The prophets of Israel did not always fare well. We should not overread the imagery--this is a parable not an allegory. But one could infer that the leadership of Israel even when it was in control of its land was farmed out. How difficult it is for the righteous to end up in power. How difficult it is for those in power to stay righteous. They are often like farmers God put in control but who are not exactly God's people.
The fact that Israel killed God's messengers is repeated in the Gospels. Luke 13:34 says, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets." Matthew 23:31 says, "You are the descendants of those who killed the prophets." We should possibly see John the Baptist as part of this mix.
12:6 Still he was having one beloved son. He sent him last to them, saying, "They will respect my son." 7. But those farmers said to themselves, "This is the heir. Come. Let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours." 8. And having taken, they killed him and cast him out of the vineyard.
Jesus is clearly the Son whom God sent. In this parable, he anticipates that he is about to be killed by the leadership of Israel like the prophets before him. In 11:18, they have already begun to plot. If he stays in the environs of Jerusalem, it is only a matter of time.
12:9 What will the Lord of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy those farmers and will give the vineyard to others. 10. Not even have you read this Scripture: "The stone that the ones building rejected--this [one] has become the head of the corner." 11. This [head] came to be from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
The victory of such "farmers" is only temporary. There will be consequences. The landowner, so patient for so long, will not suffer this insolence forever, especially when they have killed his son. He will utterly destroy them. Although Mark does not make the connection to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70 explicit, the audience of Mark would make the connection easily enough.
The event of Palm Sunday echoed Psalm 118 in more than one verse. Here Jesus quotes it again explicitly (Psalm 118:22). They have rejected Jesus as a stone in the building of Israel, but God is going to make Jesus the cornerstone of the kingdom of God. God is the Master of the vineyard. He will install whom he wants to install. He will build the way he wants to build Israel. And he wants to build on Jesus. This is a truly marvelous development!
12. And they were seeking to grab him, and they feared the crowd, for they knew that he spoke this parable against them. And, having left him, they went away.
The leaders of Jerusalem are not stupid. The fact that they do not have ears to hear does not mean in this instance that they do not know what he means,. They simply reject it with all their being. At the end of Monday, they wanted to find a way to get rid of Jesus. Now it is Tuesday and they feel even more strongly about it.
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