Pentecost 18 A: A Different Answer

Matthew 21:33-46 Dear Partner in Preaching, I think I know what Matthew’s up to here and, quite frankly, I’m not a fan. This parable, quite similar to that in Mark and Luke, has one major and one minor difference from its sibling accounts. First, the major: after telling the story of violent tenant farmers who not only refuse to give the landowner the portion of the produce lawfully owed, all three synoptic gospels portray Jesus as asking a question: “what will the landowner do to those tenants?” But whereas Mark and Luke depict Jesus as answering his own question – “he will destroy those tenants and give the land to...

Matthew 21:33-46

“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his...

Luke 20:9-19

He began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, and leased it to tenants, and went to another country for a long time. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants in order that they might give him his share of the produce of the vineyard; but the tenants beat...