{"id":620,"date":"2021-04-02T08:46:55","date_gmt":"2021-04-02T12:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=620"},"modified":"2021-04-02T08:46:55","modified_gmt":"2021-04-02T12:46:55","slug":"parable-of-the-many-sendings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/02\/parable-of-the-many-sendings\/","title":{"rendered":"Parable of the Many Sendings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Throughout Lent, we\u2019re exploring the parables of Jesus \u2013 the two dozen or so stories that were his chief means of describing the reality of God\u2019s rule on earth. <\/strong>

For a creature that never actually existed, unicorns are very much in fashion.

Depending on which dictionary you\u2019re consulting, a unicorn is either a Silicon Valley start-up company worth at least a billion dollars; a white, horse-like creature with a single horn growing from its forehead; or what thousands of young girls are hoping to look like the next time they go trick-or-treating. 

During the Middle Ages, beastiaries<\/em> \u2013 illustrated books that contained descriptions of animals, plants, and other natural phenomena \u2013 declared that unicorns, though shy and rare, were quite real.  Julius Caesar insisted he had seen a few during his military campaigns in Gaul (present-day France).  Most peasants knew at least one friend, or a friend of a friend, who claimed to have encountered one late at night in the middle of the forest.  Unicorns, in other words, were the medieval equivalent of Bigfoot.

They were assumed to be swift, fiercely wild, and impossible to capture.  Their magical horns were said to be capable of healing numerous afflictions.

There was, however, one assured way to catch a unicorn.  The secret was to invite a young virgin to sit down in a quiet clearing.  After a while a unicorn would approach her and lay its head in her lap, rendering itself vulnerable to hunters. 

In the medieval mind, the unicorn became a symbol of Christ.  After all, isn\u2019t this what Jesus did?  The second person of the Trinity, who had existed from before the creation of the world, offered himself as a helpless infant to the lap of the Virgin Mary.  And at the end of his life on earth, he willingly surrendered himself to the \u201chunters\u201d who nailed him to the cross. 

There are only three parables that appear in all three synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke): the Parable of the Four Soils, the Parable of the Mustard Seed, and this sharp-edged story that expresses something of the \u201cunicorn life\u201d of Jesus:

\u201cHere\u2019s another story. Listen closely. There was once a man, a wealthy farmer, who planted a vineyard. He fenced it, dug a winepress, put up a watchtower, then turned it over to the farmhands and went off on a trip. When it was time to harvest the grapes, he sent his servants back to collect his profits.  The farmhands grabbed the first servant and beat him up. The next one they murdered. They threw stones at the third but he got away. The owner tried again, sending more servants. They got the same treatment. The owner was at the end of his rope. He decided to send his son. \u2018Surely,\u2019 he thought, \u2018they will respect my son.\u2019<\/em>

\u201cBut when the farmhands saw the son arrive, they rubbed their hands in greed. \u2018This is the heir! Let\u2019s kill him and have it all for ourselves.\u2019 They grabbed him, threw him out, and killed him.  Now, when the owner of the vineyard arrives home from his trip, what do you think he will do to the farmhands?\u201d<\/em>

\u201cHe\u2019ll kill them\u2014a rotten bunch, and good riddance,\u201d they answered. \u201cThen he\u2019ll assign the vineyard to farmhands who will hand over the profits when it\u2019s time.\u201d  Jesus said, \u201cRight\u2014and you can read it for yourselves in your Bibles:<\/em>

The stone the masons threw out<\/em>
    is now the cornerstone.<\/em>
This is God\u2019s work;
    we rub our eyes, we can hardly believe it!<\/em>

\u201cThis is the way it is with you. God\u2019s kingdom will be taken back from you and handed over to a people who will live out a kingdom life. Whoever stumbles on this Stone gets shattered; whoever the Stone falls on gets smashed.\u201d <\/em>(Matthew 21:33-44, \u201cThe Message\u201d)

Here we see an economic arrangement that was fairly common in the time of Jesus.  A rich man creates a vineyard and then becomes an off-site landlord.  He hires workers who are responsible for the harvest.  At the end of the growing season, he sends servants to collect what rightly belongs to him.

For the original listeners, the historical connections in this story were a no-brainer.  In the Old Testament, the nation of Israel is called God\u2019s vineyard.  The workers are the religious leaders who are responsible for its fruit.  God, the rich landowner, repeatedly sends his servants (the prophets of old) to the vineyard at harvest time.  But one after another, the hired hands seize them, beat them, and even kill them.

Then God does something outrageous.  He risks the life of his son.  \u201cSurely they will respect my son,\u201d he says. 

But the workers have become so audacious that they think killing the master\u2019s son will be their ticket to the good life.  In a part of the world where possession is nine-tenths of the law, they conclude that if the master never comes back to check on his vineyard, and if they get rid of his one and only heir, all of this will become theirs.

They have gambled big.  Now they are going to lose big.  Jesus asks his audience, \u201cWhen the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmhands?\u201d

As Bible scholar Dale Bruner points out, this is a great teaching technique:  Put yourself in the place of God.  What would you<\/u> do?  <\/em>\u201cThose wretches will be brought to a wretched end!\u201d they answer.  \u201cThat\u2019s right,\u201d says Jesus.  And now he has them.  They have pronounced their own sentence.  But he also has us<\/em> \u2013 because this story isn\u2019t just a recitation of the history of Israel.  This is also our <\/em>story \u2013 the story of God being patient and kind with us, even when we insist on going our own way.

Here we need to pause and acknowledge something that Christians have long failed to get right:  The Jewish nation was not singularly responsible for the death of Jesus.<\/em>

The historian Thomas Cahill suggests that the way Christians have ridiculed, persecuted, and even massacred Jews over the centuries \u2013 labeling them Christ-killers \u2013 is \u201cthe lasting shame of Christianity, even more of a blot than its centuries of crusades against Muslim \u2018infidels.\u2019\u201d Cahill asserts that so-called followers of Jesus have caused far more harm to Jesus himself than Jews ever caused, for the simple reason that the Christians\u2019 brutal treatment of the Jews has so obviously violated Jesus\u2019 teachings.

Let us remember Jesus\u2019 amazing statement as he prepared for the cross:  \u201cNo one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.\u201d (John 10:18)  Jesus is the unicorn choosing to walk into the clearing.

What is the best name for this story of the workers in the vineyard?  Dale Bruner suggests the Parable of the Many Sendings or Many Chances. 

How have we responded to the many ways in which God is trying to grab our attention?  The make-or-break moment in the story is how the workers respond to the master\u2019s son.  Jesus clearly identifies himself as this crucial character.  Notice that nobody else comes to the vineyard after the son.  There is no one left to send \u2013 no one of higher importance or authority \u2013 after the master\u2019s son arrives.

In the same way, our lives hang in the balance according to how we respond to the Son. 

Many people find this parable hard to love.  After all, it\u2019s seriously out of step with the spirit of our age.

Contemporary spirituality embraces a therapeutic vision of the world \u2013 one that promises resurrection without death, joy without sorrow, Easter Sunday without the discomforts of Good Friday.  In social critic Ken Meyers\u2019 words, we all become \u201cclients in the hands of a Smiling Heavenly Therapist who is there for us<\/u><\/em>.\u201d 

But real life is difficult.  The world is a mess. 

The awe-inspiring truth is that God offered the life of his Son to begin the process of setting things right. 

So what makes Good Friday so good? 

The worst thing that ever happened to Jesus has turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to us.<\/em>
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Throughout Lent, we\u2019re exploring the parables of Jesus \u2013 the two dozen or so stories that were his chief means of describing the reality of God\u2019s rule on earth.  For a creature that never actually existed, unicorns are very much in fashion. Depending on which dictionary you\u2019re consulting, a unicorn is either a Silicon Valley start-up company worth at least… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[147,202,177],"class_list":["post-620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-good-friday","tag-jews","tag-parables"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":622,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions\/622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}