| Sutphin Parable: Wicked Tenants Self-Determination and Land: Israel-Palestine |
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| Primary Questions of Parable 1) Who is the main character/protagonist? Who do we sympathize with? And who do with think the vicitm is? Do you read the Land Owner as the good guy or the Tenants as the good guys. Why do you choose one over the other. Important point is that first century Jewish subsistence farmer would have cheered for the tenants, sort of like we might cheer for Robin Hood, who is standing up to forces of corruption and oppression. 2) Where does the conflict begin? Most would say that it begins when the Tenants attach the first servant. But the hearers of this parable would have seen the building of a vineyard as the first act of violence and it is peretuated against the tenant, and the tenant is seen as retaliating. First Act of Violence A man planting a vineyard is an act of violence because for one man to own that much land means that he would have had to evict or foreclose on the property of the subsistence farmers. To take another's land is bad enough, but it's made worse by the fact the land is given by Yawheh to the Jew who farms and owns it. To take the land is seen as an act of breaking the covenant between God and God's people. It's a denial of the Law in favor of power and welath. Furthermore, the vineyard has a hedge around it the implies that the landowner is a Jew who is trying to keep purity laws about seeds and vineyards not mixing. This is a grave insult because it is one Jew taking from another Jew, like a brother exploiting another brother. It's an act of inter-family viiolence. The Land Owner He's filthy rich. So rich in fact that he can afford to let a land lie fallow for four years until the crop produces fruit. He's also an urban dweller who has the money to create a commercial crop in a foregn land. The word journey implies that he lives a long distance away, probably Jeruselem. He's also probably concerned with the local community acting violenty and hostily toward him and his crop becasue he installs a watch tower. Maybe he doesn't trust his workers, too. By virtue of the fact that he leased that land back to local peasents is a further act of slight because the only people who sharecrop are people that have been formerly displaced by some type of forciible removal from their land. Nobody sells their land so they can retire to Arizona. If poeple are landless it's because they'e been disposessed by another. The Tenants Why do the tenants beat the servant of the landowner when he comes to collect their agreed upon contract? You have to imagine an answer to this, but it's not hard if you realize the people working the land have already been humiliated and subjected to eviction from their lands to work for a foreign elite. They probably were growing crops in between the grape plants until the fifth year when Jewish law forbids interplanting with wiine grapes. They may have--and this is only speculation--not grown enogh to both feed themselves and pay the landowner so perhaps they tried to renegotiate their contract. Or perhaps the servant changed the terms of the contract and they couldn't meet the terms and they started yelling and shouting, which very easily can lead to violence and blows. The second servant comes and once again there may be a disagreement, but this time the tenants hit the man on the back of the head with the back of the hand, an act of supreme humiliation. Most likely, the tenants knew that after the first beating there would be further reprisal. There back is up against the wall and they are probably so desparate that they don't care at this point about repurcussions. The third visit is now with a legion of servants and they beat and kill alot of them, which implies that this group of tenants got some backup from some nbeighbors in the village. The Son Why would the landowner send his son? Is he completely stupid and irrational? No. Actually his willingness to send his send underscores the degree of power and confidence that the elite have at this time. You simply don't mess with the elites or their family, or you will be invoking the greatest wrath on earth. You simply don't do it, or you, your family, and everyone else will suffer the firestorm of repisal. The Tenants, however, express the level of desparation and hopelessness and outrage by attacking and killing the son. They know what this means, and they don't care. Now Jesus asks rhetorically, what will the landowner do? Of course everyone knows that he will have them all killed and put new tenants on the land. Summary The hearers of this parable would have been sympathisizing with and cheering for the tenants, but they also would have known that they will go down in a hail of fire. This parables talks about the cycle of violence and how an act of oppression and injustice leads to a counter force, call it a revolt. But the revolt, even and especially if its violent, will lead to further suppression and injustice. But beyond the call for nonviiolence and justice for the poor and neglected, this parable is attacking the notion that the world--both religiously, politically, and economically, must not be constructed around prinicpals that neglect and suppress a certain class of people. This is the reversal of values, wheire Jesus is calling the week and outsider to become a part of system/structure. vv. 10-12 To figure out how this parable is connected to the Psalm quote about the mason discarding the bad stone, we must look closely at who the audience of the parable is. To do this, read before the parable: this is called the context of the story. You'll see that Jesus is going after the Elders Priests, and Lawyers, all of whom constitute the power elite at the time. If the tenants are the rightful heirs to the land and they've been unjustly dispossessed of their land, then it follows that someone is doing the disposssessing: namely, the power elite who have shirked their responsibility to takeing care of the castoffs, throwaways. The stone that is thrown away is the tenants, but the parable says that the stone must not only be preserved, but it must be placed as a cornerstone, the most important stone holding up the building. WHo is resonsible for making sure the castoff becomes the cornerstone? The power elite, of course. So the major point of this parable is that those given the power have an enormous responsibility to make sure the powerless are taken care of and have a rightful place in the builiding/society. |
| Read/Redact Bennis Document Compare Tenants to Mid-East Conflict Tenant Parable/Stone Mason Assessment |