When Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ was released in 2004, it received a hailstorm of criticism – hateful, scornful criticism. Many people and critics were offended by the violence depicted in the film – the violence showing Jesus’ arrest, trial, his flogging and his crucifixion. The fact that those scenes were historically and Scripturally accurate – more accurate than they have ever been depicted in any movie or painting – was virtually ignored.
But the most vocal criticism was focused on a brief scene that takes place near the end of Jesus’ trial before Pontius Pilate. That scene is taken from Matthew 27, verses 24 and 25, and reads as follows: “So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.’ And all the people answered, ‘His blood be on us and on our children!’” Based upon these two verses of Scripture and Gibson’s use of them in his motion picture, both Gibson and his movie were accused of being anti-Semitic. If you saw that movie, you may remember that the words were spoken in Aramaic and English subtitles could be read at the bottom of the screen – and after the original complaints, Gibson removed the subtitle but left the words in, even though viewers couldn’t translate them. Even so, Gibson and the movie were accused of fermenting hate against Jewish people. The fact that those words came straight out of Matthew 27 – and let’s not forget that Matthew himself was a Jew who originally wrote his Gospel to Jewish Christians – didn’t seem to matter to a lot of people, especially those who hate Christianity and will look for any way possible to attack the Christian faith. So was Mel Gibson correct when he included those few small words in his movie – or was he really promoting hate, specifically hatred of Jewish people? We’ll talk about that again in a few minutes. But first, let’s take a look at today’s Gospel lesson, the one that we’ve come to know as The Parable of the Wicked Tenants.
A parable is defined as “a narrative or saying that is designed to illustrate a truth,” and parables make up fully one-third of the recorded teachings of Jesus as we read them in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Scripture includes a total of 55 parables told by Jesus. Some appear in one or two Gospels, but only a handful appear in all three. This is one that is featured in Matthew, Mark and Luke.
Here’s the background. Jesus told this parable sometime during what we now call Holy Week – the days following His triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and prior to his arrest, crucifixion and death on Good Friday. Jesus is speaking to a crowd of people that includes both loyal followers and Temple authorities – those same Temple authorities who hate Jesus, who see Jesus as a threat, who want to get rid of Him for once and for all.
Although some of Jesus’ parables are more difficult to understand without reflection and study, this parable about the wicked tenants is pretty straightforward. Although the people who heard Jesus when he first spoke His parables were sometimes confused, the people who heard this parable knew exactly what he was talking about – and some of them knew exactly who He was talking about.
In The Parable of the Wicked Tenants, God the Father is the owner of the vineyard, and the vineyard represents the people of God. God had planted this vineyard – we are His creation – but He had left the vineyard in the care of the tenants, who in our text are the religious leaders of Israel.
Unfortunately, the tenants had repeatedly rejected the servants of God, the prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah and so many more who had been sent by God to call for their repentance. They were repeatedly abused, beaten, hunted down and, in some cases, even murdered. Isaiah was considered by the Jews to be among the greatest of the prophets, but even he was murdered when the evil King Manasseh reportedly had him sawed in two. Finally God the owner of the vineyard sends His Son – His “beloved” Son, the text tells us – and He, too, is rejected. He is thrown out of the vineyard and killed. At that point Jesus asks the crowd: “What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?” Jesus then quickly answers His own question: “He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.”
Luke tells us that the scribes and chief priests who heard Jesus teach His parable were enraged – because they knew that he was talking about them. Verses 19 and 20: “The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people. So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said, so as the deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor.”
The traditional interpretation of The Parable of the Wicked Tenants is that God has taken the vineyard away from the original tenants, the Children of Israel, and has given it to others – to the gentiles, to us. That’s not entirely incorrect – but it’s not entirely complete, either. Returning to the controversy raised by The Passion of the Christ movie, many claimed that when Gibson used those words from Matthew 27 – “His blood be on us and on our children” – he was repeating and promoting a centuries-old belief that the Jews – all of the Jews – were responsible for Jesus’ death. When asked about this, Gibson replied that yes, the Jews killed Jesus – but that’s only because there weren’t any Norwegians there. As ridiculous as that answer sounds, it’s true. There weren’t any Norwegians present in Jerusalem on Good Friday – there weren’t any French, there weren’t any Germans, there weren’t any Irish – there weren’t any Americans.
But Gibson quickly added that while the Jews did kill Jesus, the guilt of killing Jesus was his – was Mel Gibson’s. He said that the Jews are not more guilty or more to blame for killing Jesus than he is. As we near Good Friday and our remembrance of Jesus’ passion and death, it’s important to realize that we, too, are responsible for killing Jesus. Jesus died on the cross not just for the sins of others, but for our sins. Our sins put him there. When the religious leaders told Pilate, “His blood be on us and our children,” they technically were speaking only for themselves and not for the Jewish people. But truth be told, the blood of Jesus is on us and our children – only in a way that those scribes and chief priests would never, ever expect.
Yes, all of us are responsible for Jesus’ suffering and death. When Jesus hung on the cross, he suffered for every sin that every man, woman and child has ever committed and ever will commit. You see, we are the wicked tenants of The Parable of the Wicked Tenants.
When Jesus said that the beloved son of the vineyard owner would be thrown out of the vineyard and killed, He was foretelling His own death that would take place in just a few short days. He was foretelling that He would be led from Jerusalem and crucified. Jesus knew the hate that was in the hearts of the Jewish religious leaders. He knew that they wanted Him dead – and he knew that in a matter of days they would get what they wanted.
But Jesus also knew what was going to happen next. He knew what God the Father was going to do next. He knew that after He suffered and died, then God the Father would raise Him from the dead. Salvation for us and every wicked tenant would be accomplished. The blood of Jesus would cover us, would wash us, would make us righteous and holy in God’s sight.
In Psalm 85 verse 2 we read: “You forgave the iniquity of your people; you covered all their sin.” Our sins are not forgiven by simply dismissing them, by pretending that they never existed. God forgives sin by atoning for them – by covering them. On Good Friday, God the Son – Jesus – atoned for our sins by covering them with His holy, precious blood. And in just a few minutes we will receive that atoning body and blood in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.
When the owner of the vineyard returns, He will see us not as the wicked tenants who killed His Son, but as the ones for whom His Son suffered and died. And that’s why the words of Matthew 27 – “His blood be on us and on our children” – are not words of hate. They are not words of condemnation. Instead, they are words of pure Gospel joy. The blood of Jesus is on us and on our children. We have been washed by that holy blood, and we have been redeemed. We are the wicked tenants. But by the death of the landlord’s Son, we have been forgiven. We have been given eternal life.
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