Friday in the Second Week of Lent, March 1, 2024

Matthew 21, 33-43; 45-46

Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people: “Hear another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey. When vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce. But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned. Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones, but they treated them in the same way. Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.’ They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?” They answered him, He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times.” Jesus said to them, Did you never read in the Scriptures: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes”?  Therefore, I say to you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.” When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was speaking about them. And although they were attempting to arrest him, they feared the crowds, for they regarded him as a prophet.

“ ‘Therefore, I say to you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.’ When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was speaking about them.”  Jesus tells this parable in Jerusalem, in the Temple courtyard, during the last week of his life on earth.  He is telling the chief priests that “the Kingdom of God” will be taken away from them, that is, that they have lost their opportunity to lead Israel and to acknowledge him as Israel’s Savior.  In a real sense, it was never “given” them because Annas and his son-in-law Caiaphas had been installed by the Roman authorities as high priests.  In fact, they deposed Annas at one point and put Caiaphas in his place.  The high priesthood of the line of Aaron ended in the year 170 B.C. and from that time on the office became subject to political appointment, and was often obtained by bribery.  The high priests, during the life of Jesus, had usurped the seat of Aaron just as the Pharisees had done with the seat of Moses (cf. Matthew 23, 2).  Despite the origins of their power they could have used their position to benefit the people.  Instead, they used their positions to enrich themselves and got the,selves hated by the people for this.  The Talmud preserves a rhyme chanted at the time: “Woe to the house of Annas! Woe to their serpent’s hiss! They are high priests;
their sons are keepers of the treasury, their sons-in-law are guardians of the temple, and their servants beat people with staves” (Pesahim 57a).  

“The Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.”  The Greek ethnoi, translated here as “a people” was the Greek word the Jews used to indicate the Gentiles.  The Lord Jesus foretells the rejection of his teachings and the salvation he offers by the high priests and the bulk of the Jews.  The Kingdom of God will then be offered to the Gentiles, who will flock to it.  This is epitomized in Acts 13:46–48: “Then Paul and Barnabas said boldly: ‘To you [Jews] it behoved us first to speak the word of God: but because you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold we turn to the Gentiles. 

For so the Lord has commanded us: I have set you to be the light of the Gentiles, that you may be for salvation unto the utmost part of the earth (Isaiah 60, 3).  And the Gentiles hearing it were glad and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to life everlasting, believed.”

You and I are “ordained to life everlasting” but we must safeguard this through our faith and good works, “bearing fruit”, or the Kingdom of God will be taken from us.  And we should pray for the conversion of the Jews as well as for everyone.  If we truly love Jesus, we love those whom he loves, and desire that they love him in return.