He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” When the people heard this, they said, “God forbid!” Luke 20:16
“The parable of the Wicked Tenants, a story of greed that leads to violence and murder. Luke has simplified the account of the number of victims who suffered at the hands of the malefactors, but he has retained the thrust of the story as he writes about a series of victims, beginning with a slave who is maltreated and ending with the son who is killed.
Luke has, however, added one telling remark. After his Jesus describes the punishment that the owner of the vineyard metes out to the perpetrators of so much evil, Luke writes, “When they heard this, they said, ‘heaven forbid.’ “No way,” our contemporaries might say. Those who heard Jesus tell this story including those to whom his telling of the story was ultimately directed, were incredulous.
They could not or would not believe that God would punish greedy people who resorted to violence and murder. Of the three Synoptics, Luke is the only one to add this comment, but he wants his readers to know that some people find the idea that God will severely punish greed, violence, and murder preposterous.”
Raymond F. Collins in Wealth, Wages, and the Wealthy: New Testament Insight for Preachers and Teachers (Collegeville: Liturgical, 2017) 153.
Take a moment and read this parable in Luke’s Gospel, Luke 20:9-19. If you read Matthew and Mark’s account, you will find similar narrative, just not the verse that serves as today’s Scripture above, Matthew 21:33-46; Mark 12:1-12. And, if you are wondering what this text and reading have to do with generosity, let me make my point first.
Those who through self-justification have talked themselves into thinking they can act as owners and who appear to serve God but by their behavior show are motivated by greed stood among the ranks of the religious authorities in the days of Jesus. When they realized that their greed, the selfish desire to possess which had situated them in power, would be the very tool that would destroy them, they exclaimed “No way!” because that meant what they had would be taken away. No wonder they would try to “lay hands on him that very hour” (Luke 20:19).
Today’s post is an alarm to awaken the greedy and selfish soul to sharing and repentance: the tenants should have been generous sharers from the start. But it’s also a message to people who champion stewardship everywhere: the religious establishment, if they are acting like owners, will not want to hear the message.
The wicked tenants acted like they owned the vineyard instead of sharing with successive servants or even the son of the landowner, their greed led to violence and even murder. We see this pattern today. People will do anything to preserve power and place. Often they retain wealth, acting as owners, is just the first of a pattern of sins. Not good!
Yesterday I said that to live a generous life we must live differently from the world. Today we learn why. Those who follow the pattern of this world will serve money rather than God, and their selfish desire to possess will lead to their demise. This happens to people running in religious circles. What they have will be taken away and given to others.
The “one telling remark” Collins points out that does not appear in Matthew or Mark’s account is the reaction of the greedy listeners who realized he was referring to them. They had been caught in their self-justification and would lose everything. What about you? Are you acting like an owner? The time to repent and share is now.