Have you ever seen a naked chicken? I haven't, but I read about one recently. Two poultry researchers, Ralph Somes, Jr. in Connecticut and Max Rubin in Maryland, have produced a new breed of naked chicken. Actually this strange breed was first discovered in 1953 by Ursula Abbott, a researcher at the University of California. Since then, according to the Wall Street Journal, naked chickens have been bred and studied on a wide scale.
The advantage of having a naked chicken is this: none of the food intake of the chicken is processed into feathers. It all goes into meat. The naked birds actually weigh 5 or 6% more than their feathered friends. Moreover, because there is no fatty cushion needed to support feather follicles, there is less shrinkage during cooking. As a result, a roasted, naked bird yields about 16% more meat. Now, if God had wanted 16% more productivity from us, He could have created us in such a way that we would have to give 16% more, automatically.
God could have created us as puppets on a string or as naked chickens, so He could get from us just exactly what He wanted. But the God of the Bible, the God of Jesus Christ, did not do that. God created us and gave us freedom and accountability. That's the point of the parable in the 12th chapter of Mark. We are not naked chickens, not puppets on a string, not robots who can be programmed to always produce the same results. We are human beings. And that is what makes our lives so exciting and dangerous; both to ourselves, and to God. God's
creation of us and giving us freedom--even the freedom to reject Him--is God's vast wager.
You see, in all of Chirst's management parables, the kings go away and leave their servants to work things out for themselves. They have the freedom to make their own decisions in the absence of the owner. God left Adam to be the manager of the earth, to till it and subdue it; and God continually gives to humankind the capacity and the responsibility of making decisions.
God's management style is that of taking a "hands off" approach. He doesn't constantly look over our shoulders, constantly stepping in to correct us when we do things wrong or get off course. God has given us freedom to work things out for ourselves on this, God's good earth. That is why sometimes we feel abandoned. God has gone away for awhile. Not far away. He can still hear our prayers, but He is not so close that we will be smothered by His love. As Presbyterian David Redding says, "God has not deserted, but carried out a strategic retreat to provide man(kind) an opportunity to prove his stewardship." And, in a very apt analogy, he says: "We are under the eye but not the thumb of God; we are not treated like helpless kindergartners but as responsible adolescents."
Let's see what we can find in the story in Mark 12.
FOR ONE THING, IN SPITE OF WHAT MARK SAYS, IT IS NOT A PARABLE, BUT AN ALLEGORY:
At least, that's what the scholars tell us. A parable is (by definition) a story which has but one main point. An allegory is a story in which several different points are made, and one thing is used to refer to another. This passage is unusual in that allegory is built right into the story itself by a series of equivalents which neither the first hearers of the story nor we today can fail to understand.
The owner of the vineyard is obviously God. The vineyard is God's people, Israel. Behind the image of Israel as a vineyard lies the Song of the Vineyard in Isaiah 5:1-7, whose hedge, pit and tower are echoed in Mark 12. The tenents are the religious leaders of the day. The servants who came first and were murdered were the prophets. Finally, the son sent by the father is Jesus. Now, "absentee landlords" were common in Jesus' day. That was one thing which caused so much unrest in the hearts and minds of His people.
The largest estates were held by foreigners. (Sound familiar?)
But in ancient Palestine agrarian discontent went hand in hand with nationalistic feeling. From time to time, nationalistic leaders would rise up and urge the people to cast off the yoke of political and economic oppression. This "parable" or allegory of St. Mark may well be taken as evidence of just the sort of thing that went on in Galilee during the century preceding the general revolt of 66 A.D., which culminated in the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., and the fall of Masada in 73 A.D. Jesus may have gotten the story right out of whatever was the equivalent of the daily newspaper.
THE STORY IS A PLAY THAT UNFOLDS IN FOUR ACTS:
In the first act, the tenants rebel against the owner by rejecting, beating, and killing a succession of servants sent to get some of the profits from the vineyard which were owed to the landlord. One immediately thinks of Jesus weeping over the Holy City of Jerusalem, and saying, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" (Matthew 23:37)
The second act depicts what God does in response to what the tenants have done. And what God does is not what I would have done. Not at all. I would have called the cops, gotten a lawyer, found somebody tough to go in and teach those dirty so-and-so's a lesson! Wouldn't you? That would be a normal, human reaction. But we are not talking here about what you or I might have done...but what God did. The second stage in the story tells us that the rightful owner of the vineyard took an initiative of "grace".
It is not the normal response to rebellion, nor the action of a wronged property owner. It is, however, a perfect description of what God did in response to humanity's downward slide of disobedience which began in the Garden of Eden and continues to this day. "For God so loved the world, that he sent His only Son..." (John 3:16)
The third act shows the rejection of God's grace in Jesus Christ by the religious leaders of His day. That is what Mark wanted us to see when he passed on this parable or allegory to us. This is precisely what happened. God's grace given to the world in Jesus Christ was rejected by the religious establishment of His day.
The fourth act is introduced by rhetorical question. "What will the owner of the vineyard do?" This is the culmination of the story. The story tells of the owner's rejection of the original tenants, and his giving the vineyard to others. Mark does not specify just who the "others" to whom the vineyard is given are, but the first readers of this Gospel had no doubt.
The earliest Christians saw this clearly as a reference to the Old Israel and the New (The Church). But note very carefully: ISRAEL (the vineyard) is not rejected in this story: its current custodians are. The multitude, according to Mark, is very favorably disposed toward Jesus. But by rejecting the Son they brought about their own rejection. Mark's readers would have believed that they, themselves, were God's new vineyard, the "new Israel." That soon led to a certain haughtiness and pride and Paul later on, in the Book of Romans, had to warn them lest they became too cocky, tha
t God could dispense with them, too, if they were not obedient to God.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR US?
The first thing the story tells us is that we are only temporary "tenants" in God's world. We don't really own anything. I once heard of a young preacher who told this to his congregation. After the morning service, one of his wealthier members took him out into the country, and showed him acres and acres of fields to which he held the title. He asked, "Do you mean to tell me that I don't really own any of this?" To which the young pastor replied, "Ask me that question a 100 years from today!"
We are tenants, also, in God's Church. It was here before we were, and will be here long after we are gone. The question is: what are we going to do with it while we are here? The wicked tenants in Mark's story were obviously the religious leadership of Jesus' day. They had a proprietary interest in the current religious establishment. Mark says that they recognized that the parable was aimed at them. And so it was. And at us.
What is the point of Jesus' story? It is that no set of religious leaders in any particular period of time is indispensable. I am not indispensable. Neither are you. That's a humbling thought, isn't it? During the early part of this century, when the so-called "Social Gospel" movement was beginning, some of its exponents went to extremes. They talked a lot about "building the Kingdom of God" in this world. Someone once described their theology as saying, "Courage God, we come!" I'm not knocking the "Social Gospel." The Gospel must be social or it is not Gospel.
But I wonder whether God is absolutely dependent upon any particular group of people to get His work done in this world. I believe that if God's own people let Him down, He will find another way to accomplish His purposes. If there is no room at the inn, then the Baby will be born out back in a stable. If there is no room in the religious establishment for a radical rabbi from Galilee, then God will start a new movement among the masses. If there is no room in the 16th century medieval Church for reform, then God will raise up a Martin Luther, and there will be a Reformation. If there is no room in the 18th century English religious establishment for the vital preaching of a John Wesley, then God will raise up a Methodist movement.
In the 1960's when some churches refused to declare segregation immoral, then God used the Supreme Court to declare it illegal. If God cannot find a people with whom he can work inside the church, then God will work outside normal channels to get His work done and His purposes accomplished.
This parable or allegory or whatever you want to call it challenges the popular notion that the world (or the Church) belongs to US. In one sense, it is O.K. for us to say "This is my Church." But in the final analysis it is never OUR Church, is it? In 1939 3 Methodist bodies in America joined together to form what was known from 1939 to 1968 as "The Methodist Church."
One of those previous bodies was the "Methodist Episcopal Church." I can remember serving small rural churches in the early days of my ministry which still had plates and chairs with the strange inscription on them: "Property of the ME Church." That's what a lot of folks would like to have the Church be. "The ME Church." They would like the church to exist only for them: to support all their prejudices and second all their motions. But the Church is God's Church, first. He's the One who is in charge here. We aren't.
Lamar Williamson, whose commentary on Mark helped me a lot with this sermon, writes: "The relationship between Christians and Jews has changed radically from the time of Jesus and the early church, but the word of warning is still the same: Be careful lest in clamoring for your place in the vineyard you reject the Son whose way is service and a cross. This warning originally addressed to arrogant Jewish leaders applies equally to arrogant Christian leaders today. The positive thrust of the parable is to call religious leaders and all Christians away from the behavior of wicked tenants to that of good stewards. We are challenged to respond to the boundless grace of God, maifested in the Son whom he loved and sent...and who is coming."
Do you know the derivaiton of the word "steward?" We use it all the time in church. We talk about stewardship of time, talent, and treasure. We talk about trying to be good stewards of God's good earth. But originally the word "steward" meant "ward of the sty," a keeper of pigs. It was someone who kept property, pigs in this instance, for another. In this sense we are all keepers of property for someone else, for God.
Sometimes an offertory prayer is said: "We give Thee but Thine own; whate'er the gift may be; all that we have is Thine alone, a trust, O Lord, from Thee."
And that's the way it is. There is a story of a young minister appointed to his first rural parish. He attended the county fair with the folks of the parish. And he was told that his predecessor had usually entered the hog-calling contest, and won. He was asked it he'd like to give it a try. He replied, "Well, when the Lord and the Bishop appointed me to serve this church, I thought I was being called to be the shepherd of the sheep...but you know your people better than I do!"
Perhaps..."They will respect my son." (v.6) Perhaps. But I wouldn't count on it. That's a pretty big gamble. Years ago Harry Emerson Fosdick made the observation that the world persecutes 2 kinds of people: those who live below the standard, and those who dare to live above it. In 399 BC in the jail at Athens there were criminals...but also Socrates. On Calvary there were crucified 2 criminals, but also the Christ. In the prison of Caesar's Rome there were thieves and criminals, but also Paul. In the jail at Birmingham, Alabama in the 1960's there were thieves and criminals, but also Martin Luther King, Jr., an American Baptist. And today his birthday is a national holiday. "The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner."
But there is a fifth act in the story. The quotation of Psalm 118:22-23, triumphantly affirms the vindication of the Son, Jesus, who was viewed by the early Church as "the stone which the builders rejected." So the writer of the First Letter of Peter says: "Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God's sight chosen and precious..." (I Peter 2:4) So the entire story in Mark 12 foreshadows the passion narrative which will follow shortly and it anticipates beyond Good Friday, the glorious good news of Easter Day. The famous World War One British poet/chaplain G.A. Studdert-Kennedy (1883-1929) wrote a poem titled "Gambler." It goes like this:
He was a gambler, too, my Chirst,
He took His life and threw
It for a world redeemed.
And ere his agony was done,
Before the westering sun went down,
Crowning that day with crimson crown,
He knew that He had won. Amen.
