As
\nmy paternal grandmother (Nana) aged, she needed increasing levels of
\nhelp. \u00a0After she’d transitioned to assisted living, her beloved only
\nson (my father) would often take her out on shopping excursions. \u00a0My
\nNana was a woman who loved to shop, ok, she was a woman who lived to
\nshop. \u00a0It regularly amused me to talk to both my father and my Nana
\nafter said excursions. \u00a0My Nana would relate the experiences this
\nway, \u201cYour father is SO impatient! \u00a0All I wanted to do was go to a
\nfew stores, look at what they had, and enjoy being out. \u00a0All he
\nwanted was to get out of there. \u00a0It is like he doesn’t know how to
\nhave any fun!\u201d \u00a0My father would relate the experiences this way,
\n\u201cYour grandmother takes forever! \u00a0I took her to the store, she
\nwanted me to push her down each of the the aisles, slowly, and then
\nwhen we were done she’d want to do it again!\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Their
\ntwo versions of shopping together always made me giggle because it
\nwas so clear that they were relating the same story, just from two
\ndifferent experiences. I’ve been thinking about their shopping
\nexcursions this week because the Gospel does the opposite.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As
\nfar as I can figure it out, what we have in the Gospel is one story
\nbeing used for two totally different purposes at the same time
\n(without changing perspectives). \u00a0One of these stories is the
\nnarrative that Jesus told and the other is the one that the early
\nChristian community told, and they told them for VERY different
\nreasons.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Since \n<\/p>\n \nIn \n<\/p>\n We \n<\/p>\n The \n\u201cHe \n<\/p>\n This \n<\/p>\n So \n<\/p>\n It \n\u201cThe \n<\/p>\n \nI \n<\/p>\n \nTo \n<\/p>\n \nMy \n<\/p>\n The \n<\/p>\n \nThis \n<\/p>\n \nThe 1<\/a> 2<\/a> 3<\/a> 4<\/a>Gospel 5<\/a> 6<\/a> 7<\/a> 8<\/a> 9<\/a> 10<\/a> <\/p>\n Rev. Sara E. Baron<\/p>\n First United Methodist Church of Schenectady<\/p>\n 603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305<\/p>\n Pronouns: she\/her\/hers<\/p>\n http:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n
\nwe are are much more familiar with the one the early Christian
\ncommunity told, and since it is the version we see in the Gospel
\ntoday, we’re going to start by looking at that one. \u00a0It is
\nbrilliantly done, poetically beautiful, and intended to insult the
\nJews. \u00a0SIGH. \u00a0As the Jesus Seminar puts it, \u201cThis
\nparable was a favorite in early Christian circles because it could
\neasily be allegorized [to the story where] God’s favor was
\ntransferred from its original recipients (Israel) to its new heirs
\n(Christians, principally gentiles).\u201d1<\/sup><\/a>
\n This version intentionally reflections on Isaiah 5:1-7. \u00a0They start
\nin parallel ways, with the description of the creation of the
\nvineyard: planting, enclosing, digging, building a watch tower. \u00a0The
\nparallels in the beginning of the passages are intended to remind us
\nof the conclusion of the Isaiah reading, which says (in case you
\nforgot), \u201c[God] expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness,
\nbut heard a cry!\u201d (Isaiah 5:7b, NRSV)<\/p>\n
\nIsaiah the shock is that after all that work (and it takes years to
\nget grapes from the vineyard), the grapes were sour. \u00a0The metaphor
\nindicates that God had invested in creating a just society with
\nIsrael and is horrified that they didn’t become one. \u00a0Matthew extends
\nthis metaphor, indicating that he thinks the Jews failed to create a
\njust society, but that the Christians will succeed. \u00a0In the
\nallegorical reading of the parable, God will kick out the tenants and
\nreplace them. \u00a0It seems that this reflects a time when Christians
\nwere feeling disempowered and felt the need to tell stories that
\nempowered them. \u00a0The problem is that for a whole lot of centuries
\nnow, Christians have been the empowered and by continuing to tell
\nthemselves this story they have disempowered Jewish people and
\nperpetuated antisemitism.<\/p>\n
\ncan be clear that the Matthew version is the creation of the
\nChristian community and not Jesus because it includes the detail
\nabout the son being killed and cast off. \u00a0Ched Myers writes, \u201cThe
\nson is killed and cast off (without proper burial, the ultimate
\ninsult) Jesus too will be cast ‘outside’ the city of Jerusalem.\u201d2<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n
\ngood news is that scholars think they can get a good guess at how the
\noriginal parable sounded, the one Jesus told. \u00a0This is the other
\nversion of the parable, and it wasn’t allegorical. \u00a0William Herzog
\npoints out the version in Matthew is quite different from others,
\nsaying, \u00a0\u201cThe parable begins with a description of a man creating a
\nvineyard yet neither Luke nor the Gospel of Thomas include these
\ndetails.\u201d3<\/sup><\/a>
\nThat means that the original parable wasn’t meant to be an extension
\nof Isaiah 5, and likely wasn’t intending to dismiss the Jews. \u00a0The
\nGospel of Thomas version is thought to be the closest to what Jesus
\nmight actually have said:\n<\/p>\n
\nsaid, A […] person owned a vineyard and rented it to some
\nfarmers, so they could work it and he could collect its crop from
\nthem. \u00a0He sent his slave so the farmers would give him the vineyard’s
\ncrop. \u00a0They grabbed him, beat him, and almost killed him, and the
\nslave returned and told his master. \u00a0His master said, “Perhaps
\nhe didn’t know them.” \u00a0He sent another slave, and the farmers
\nbeat that one as well. \u00a0Then the master sent his son and said,
\n“Perhaps they’ll show my son some respect.” \u00a0Because the
\nfarmers knew that he was the heir to the vineyard, they grabbed him
\nand killed him.\u201d4<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n
\nparable seems to describe something that might have actually happened
\nduring Jesus life time. \u00a0It reflects tensions that were present in
\nGalilee at that time. \u00a0In the Social Science Commentary they write,
\n\u201cIf we may assume that at the earliest stage of the Gospel
\ntradition the story was not an allegory about God’s dealings with
\nIsrael, as it is now, it may well have been a warning to absentee
\nlandowners expropriating and exporting the produce of the land.\u201d5<\/sup><\/a>
\n Another commentator concludes, \u201cAnd however the vengeance of the
\nowner may be interpreted allegorically, it certainly reflects a
\nlandowner’s wrath, which which the landless Palestinian was all too
\nfamiliar.\u201d6<\/sup><\/a>\t<\/p>\n
\nthe problem in the parable according to Herzog is \u201cthe creation of
\na vineyard would, on economic grounds alone, have disturbed the
\nhearers of the parable. \u00a0Because land in Galilee was largely
\naccounted for and intensively cultivated, ‘a man’ could acquire the
\nland required to build a vineyard only by taking it from someone
\nelse. \u00a0The most likely way he would have added the land to his
\nholdings was through foreclosure on loans to free peasant farmers who
\nwere unable to pay off the loans because of poor harvests.\u201d7<\/sup><\/a>
\n This means that \u201cbuilding vineyards was a ‘speculative investment’
\nand therefore the prerogative of the rich.\u201d8<\/sup><\/a>
\n So the parable reflects economic realities that were doing GREAT
\nharm in Galilee at the time of Jesus. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\nalso reflected a reality of violence at the time of Jesus. \u00a0Herzog
\ncontinues, \u201cIf the peasants resorted to violence only when their
\nsubsistence itself was threatened then the conversion of land from
\nfarmland to a vineyard ([Mark] 12:1b, 2) would be an event that would
\ntrigger such a response. \u00a0The building of the vineyard and the
\nviolence it generates also describes the conflict of two value
\nsystems. \u00a0Elites continually sought to expand their holdings and add
\nto their wealth at the expense of the peasants.\u201d9<\/sup><\/a>
\n \u00a0So, the creation of new vineyards was part of a system of wealth
\ntransformation from the subsistence peasants to the very wealthy.
\nHerzog then seems this as step one in a spiral of violence that went
\nlike this:\n<\/p>\n
\nspiral begins in the everyday oppression and exploitation of the poor
\nby the ruling class.This violence is often covert and sanctioned by
\nlaw, such as the hostile takeover of peasant land. \u00a0More often than
\nnot, peasants simply adjust and adapt to these incursions by the
\nelites in order to maintain their subsistence standard; but… even
\npeasants have a breaking point. \u00a0When their very subsistence is
\nthreatened, they will revolt. \u00a0This is the second phrase of the
\nspiral of violence, and it is this phase that the parable depicts in
\ngreat detail. \u00a0Inevitably, such rebellions or revolts are repressed
\nthrough the use of force, as the final question of the parable
\nsuggests. \u00a0This officially sanctioned violence defines the final
\nphase of the spiral of violence, which always occurs ‘under the
\npretext of safeguarding public order [or] national security.\u201d10<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n
\nhave, to this point, been following the commentaries of multiple
\nbrilliant scholars: ones who differentiated the current form of the
\nparable from the one Jesus likely told, ones that explain the
\neconomic factors of vineyards, ones that connect economic systems
\nwith violence. \u00a0 However, first I’m going to draw my own conclusion,
\none that none of them came around to.<\/p>\n
\nget there, I want to go back to a seemingly simple point John Dominic
\nCrossan made while he was here. \u00a0He mentioned that Jesus was killed
\nfor being a non-violent revolutionary, and we know this because he
\nwas killed alone instead of being killed with all of his followers
\nlike he would have been if he’d led a violent revolt. \u00a0John Dominic
\nCrossan is one of many scholars who think that Jesus was very
\nintentionally nonviolent, and that was a definitional characteristic
\nof his movement. \u00a0I agree with them. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\nsuspicion is that if Jesus told this story, he told it to talk about
\nviolent resistance and nonviolent resistance. \u00a0He would have told
\nthis story to point out that violence tends to beget violence, and to
\noffer an alternative. The spiral of violence: taking away people’s
\nlivelihoods, killing in self-defense, repressed rebellions was NOT
\nthe vision Jesus had for the people. \u00a0By naming how things tend to go
\ndown in the world, by talking about how others were choosing to act,
\nhe would have been differentiating his movement from theirs. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\nanswer to Matthew’s question at the end of the parable, \u201cNow when
\nthe owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?\u201d
\nis that the owner would either kill them directly or displace them
\nwithout any resources to allow them to die slowly. \u00a0In the
\nallegorical version of the story when God becomes the landowner,
\nthat’s disgusting. \u00a0However, if Jesus’ intention was to point out how
\nthe world works and
\noffer an alternative,<\/b>
\n<\/b>it
\nis worth listening to.<\/p>\n
\nweek, it seems worth remembering that we are followers of a man who
\nlived in a time of violence, who choose nonviolence and invited
\nothers to choose nonviolence with him. \u00a0John Dominic Crossan invited
\nus to remember that there is power in nonviolence too, and that is a
\npower of the followers of Christ. \u00a0The empire that perpetuated
\nviolence in the of Jesus killed only him because they thought the
\nthreat of violence would kill his movement, but it failed.
\nNonviolent resistance could not be stopped so easily.<\/p>\n
\nquestion for today is how we practice nonviolent resistance in the
\nways that Jesus did: which were pointed, powerful, and effective in
\ncaring for the vulnerable people of God. \u00a0This week has felt
\noverwhelming: \u00a0paying attention to yet another mass murder, learning
\nmore and more about the ways that the people of Puerto Rico have been
\nsystematically impoverished, and watching as another large swath of
\npeople prepare for yet another hurricane. \u00a0Nonviolent resistance
\ntakes intentionality, focus, communication, collaboration,
\ncreativity, and commitment. \u00a0But it has brought justice to this world
\ntime and time again. (If you need an example, the Civil Rights
\nMovement in this country is the most accessible, but the list is
\nreally quite long). \u00a0The next successful movements for justice will
\nbe wise to follow the same method that Jesus used: nonviolent
\nresistance. \u00a0For that I hope we can all say: Thanks be to God. \u00a0Amen\n<\/p>\n
\n\t Robert W. Funk, Roy W Hoover, and The Jesus Seminar, The Five
\n\tGospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus <\/i>(HarperOneUSA,
\n\t1993), pages 510.<\/p>\n
\n\t Ched Myers, Binding
\n\tthe Strong Man<\/i>
\n\t( Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988, 2008), page 309.<\/p>\n
\n\t William R. Herzog II, Parables as Subversive Speech<\/i>,
\n\t(Louisville, KY: Westminster\/John Knox Press, 1994), p. 101.<\/p>\n
\n\tof Thomas 65:1-7, Scholars Version.<\/p>\n
\n\t Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social Science
\n\tCommentary on the Synoptic <\/i>Gospels
\n\t(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), p. 110.<\/p>\n
\n\t Myers, 309.<\/p>\n
\n\t Herzog, 102.<\/p>\n
\n\t Herzog, 103.<\/p>\n
\n\t Herzog, 107-108.<\/p>\n
\n\t Herzog, 108-109, working with work from Helder Camara, 1971.<\/p>\n