Mk 12:1-12
1[Jesus] began to speak to [the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders] in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenant farmers and left on a journey. 2At the proper time he sent a servant to the tenants to obtain from them some of the produce of the vineyard. 3But they seized him, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. 4Again he sent them another servant. And that one they beat over the head and treated shamefully. 5He sent yet another whom they killed. So, too, many others; some they beat, others they killed. 6He had one other to send, a beloved son. He sent him to them last of all, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’
7But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8So they seized him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. 9What [then] will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come, put the tenants to death, and give the vineyard to others. 10Have you not read this scripture passage: ‘The stone that the builders rejected/ has become the cornerstone;/ 11by the Lord has this been done,/ and it is wonderful in our eyes’?” 12They were seeking to arrest him, but they feared the crowd, for they realized that he had addressed the parable to them. So they left him and went away.
He had addressed the parable to them. Responsibility is a small boy standing before a neighbor’s door, asking for his baseball that has broken through that neighbor’s window. While his playmates have run away in fear or hidden in guilt, he rings the doorbell and awaits scolding. The man in the house opens the door, listens to the boy’s fearful apology, then gives the ball back, gently tousling the boy’s hair and telling him to enjoy his game and be more careful next time.
This is the other side of the parable of the tenants. Jesus does not mean to scold or threaten the Pharisees though they feel alluded to. He challenges them to take responsibility for their lives and their actions, to recognize the gifts in their hands, and to remember their kind and generous God.
We all have this gift in our hands. We have this wonderful God who visits us. Let us recognize the Divine Visitor knocking at the door of our heart.
Vineyard. Allusions to the production of grapes abound in the Bible. The vine is usually planted on hill slopes less suitable for cereal. The ground is prepared by clearing it of stones. The vineyard is secured from predatory animals by enclosure. Metaphorically, the vine is Israel, cared for by the Lord. Sadly, the vine produces beusim, grapes that rot before they are ripe (Is 5:2). In the parable, the tenants are the vine that should produce the expected fruit; instead, they produce only violence.