Matthew 21:33-46 Commentary

Jesus continues speaking to the temple leaders who have confronted him about his authority. He has refused to answer them directly and has instead told them a parable that compares the leaders to people who say yes when their father asks them to do something but then don’t do it. Their disobedience is akin to not actually believing in God. Then he escalates things and tells them an even more radical parable. This one shocks the leaders when they realize what Jesus is accusing them of doing and being. 

The parable is about a landowner who carefully and purposefully prepares his land for others to take over. He plants the crops, he puts a fence around it to protect it from threats nearby and a watchtower that helps protect it from threats from afar. The owner even puts a wine press there, ready to be used for harvesting. The landowner continues to own the vineyard and has a vested interest in the fruit that it produces; he has done his part to set things up for flourishing.

The tenants who come to rent are also invested in its fruitfulness (it just turns out to be a different kind of fruit.) Everything has been prepared and it’s a turn-key operation: they have been set up for success and they relish the situation. Was the ease of it all what turned them greedy? Their greed becomes coveting and they scheme on how to take what they want and make it all their own. It’s not that they forget the vineyard owner exists, it’s that they don’t care.

They turn violent to keep what does not belong to them. They choose violence to not one but two sets of slaves, foreshadowing what will be done to Jesus and future martyrs: beating, killing, and stoning the innocent. The violence is shocking, especially since it is so clearly unprovoked and against representatives of someone who has only acted with goodwill and good faith. 

The violence only begets violence. The greed that snowballed to coveting that snowballed to violence just keeps getting bigger and bigger, unchecked by the perpetrators. But that’s the nature of sin and our besetting temptations, isn’t it? They so often take on a life of their own and before you know it, they become our life. 

Whatever becomes the thing that matters the most (whether we realize that is what has happened) needs to be protected at all costs. Even when the vineyard owner sends his son to represent him and collect the fruit and rent from the tenants, the tenants cannot see an equal: they see a means to an end. Every human within their orbit has been objectified in their quest to power.

What will the vineyard owner do now, Jesus asks the temple leaders. What will become of these people who have objectified and hurt and killed others to try to keep what does not actually belong to them? The temple leaders say what sounds like justice to them, “a miserable death” and that the vineyard owner will justifiably find new tenants to work his land.

In his next words to the temple leaders, Jesus changes up the circumstances of the parable a little, presenting the vineyard owner and his messengers as “the stone that the builders rejected” but which “has become the cornerstone.” Like all of the preparation the vineyard owner took to prepare his land, Jesus Christ is “the Lord’s doing” and it could be “amazing in our eyes” if we could only see or appreciate it. Imagine what a good life the tenants could have had if they knew what a gift they had been given, how good they had it with this particular vineyard owner.

What is becoming of God’s “vineyard” among us? Are we stewarding and appreciating all that God has prepared for our communities, or are we trying to protect some false sense of self or priority that leads us astray from God? And at what cost? Who is being violently objectified and abused by our worldviews, opinions, lifestyles and community practices? Who will God raise up to take our places?

In verse 44, the vineyard owner and all he represents as the God-figure (and we can assume Jesus Christ himself) is described as the cornerstone that others reject, and on which God does amazing things. But the metaphor is taken further than the original verses in Psalm 118:22-23. Jesus warns that those who trip over him and who he is and what he stands for will be broken to pieces or crushed when his reality hits them. It’s a brutal wakeup call for these leaders.

But will they take it? Just like in the parable, their first response is to double-down and begin to plot on how to get rid of him. But the crowd, like in their support for John the Baptist earlier, serves as a check on the leaders—for now. The leaders realize that they have been accused, but they are deep in their patterns. How many messengers have already been sent through the prophets? And now that the Son has come, what will become of all these sinful patterns and ways among God’s people and their leaders?

Textual Point

In her Belief series commentary, Anna Case-Winters raises the possibility that in this parable and in light of Isaiah 5, the vineyard symbolises the people of God and the wicked tenants are its leaders. While this does not limit our ability to personalise the parable as we reflect on our own habits of living as stewards of God’s vineyard, it does elevate the concern that we need to have regarding leadership—especially since abusing power and authority has not gotten any better since Jesus’s time.

Illustration Idea

There are many who write on the abuses of power happening in the church and one of them is Chuck DeGroat, a Seminary professor, former pastor, and clinical counselor. In a recent post, Chuck wrote about his answer to the question, “What’s the worst scandal you’ve seen?” His reflections help us remember that it’s more than an individual, it’s a whole way (or lack thereof) of discipleship in the character of Christ.